Elderly couple in serious condition after fire engulfs Long Island home
ROOSEVELT, Long Island (WABC) -- An elderly couple is in critical condition after being trapped in a massive fire that engulfed their Long Island home.
The house on East Raymond Avenue in Roosevelt caught fire early Friday morning with flames badly damaging the home next door.
A neighbor took video of the fire and can be heard pleading for the safety of the couple.
A good Samaritan tried to enter the house before first responders arrived to rescue the woman and her male companion.
"I tried two times to go in the house," Alex Aguilar said. " The problem was, there was a lot of smoke inside that was very impossible to be inside."
"He tried to grab the lady from the fire, but he couldn't because the flame was so hard," neighbor Jose Mebreno said.
Both victims were removed from the building by first responders and are currently in critical condition at an area hospital.
The video recorded by the woman's neighbor is time-stamped nine minutes after the 911 call came in, but no firefighters are seen in front of the house.
East Raymond Avenue was closed from Nassau Road to Cottage Place while the fire department battled the flames.
A man who was just arriving to work on the corner saw the flames shooting from the roof of the house.
"When I got here the person was alive, they took her out on a stretcher, " Brian Hurd said. "It looked like complete chaos. Flames everywhere, smoke all over the place, people crying-- it was just terrible."
The home was completely destroyed in the fire.
Investigators are now working to determine what caused the fire.
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