The fire started around 3:30 Saturday off 91st Street in Fort Hamilton in the second floor of the building. As flames shot out the window, anyone who watched in shock could think only one thing -- how would the 89-year-old man who lives there get out?
"I thought he wasn't going to -- I didn't think, from the look of what was going on. I didn't think he'd come out. But when the neighbor said 'no, they got him out,' they took him out on a stretcher, I was like oh wow, that's good. Because that was scary" said Adriana Dickson.
Dickson and her son are still trying to calm down after witnessing the intense fire.
The sound of blaring sirens filled the air during the afternoon, but normally it would have been music coming from the elderly neighbor's apartment.
"He plays the National Anthem I think, every day from like 2-3:45 during the school time when all the kids are getting out, and he blasts it right from his window where the fire escape is. And he makes sure everyone can hear it," said one neighbor.
Neighbors say he is a veteran -- a patriotic man. On Saturday, they waited with bated breath as if the world had gone silent, waiting to see if he would make it out.
"He has a walker, and it's hard for him to get up and down the stairs, that I know" said Denis Kaver.
Once firefighters got to him, medics began advanced treatment immediately, and rushed him to the hospital in serious condition.
As cleanup from the fire begins, the tight-knit community prays for the man's recovery.
An investigation is underway as fire marshals work to determine the cause of the fire.
One person was rescued by firefighters and taken to Staten Island University North. There is no word on that person's condition.
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