Man dies after jump from burning Brooklyn building; 5 others hurt

FLATBUSH (WABC) -- A raging fire burned through a three-story building in Brooklyn early Monday, forcing two residents to jump from the third floor. One did not survive.

The fire broke out on Nostrand Avenue in Flatbush just before 2 a.m.

"People were yelling jump, jump jump," said Yesser Alkadri, who works as a clerk at a nearby deli.

Alkadri captured the chaos on his cellphone as the two men leaped for their lives to escape the flames.

"I saw a guy was hanging on top of the Golden Krust sign, and the other guy jumped on a mattress on the floor," Alkadri said. "They had put a mattress for him on the floor, and he jumped on top of it."

But that mattress, dragged under the window by passersby, wan't enough to save the life of 59-year-old Tony Celestin, who died at the hospital shortly after his desperate jump.

"He just come to me, shook me," said Jean B. Maurice, the other man who jumped. "'Wake up it's fire.'"

Maurice, who landed on a bakery awning and survived, credits Celestin with saving his life.

"They tell me to stay there until the fire department come," he said. "And they rescue me."

Maurice was treated at Staten Island University Hospital North and released.

In all, six people were injured. The others were treated at Kings County Hospital.

Two people walking down the street saw the smoke, ran into the building and told residents to get out, but they could not reach the two who were trapped.

"As soon as he kicked the door open, it got hot because I heard the glass breaking," Good Samaritan Tariq Thomas said. "And then smoke started coming out more and more, and it got too hot where I couldn't breathe. I just had to run back outside."

Fire marshals say the fire was an accidental electrical fire that was found in the area of extension cords and power strips.