A firefighter was seriously injured in a 40-foot fall from a window while battling a five-alarm fire at a Manhattan apartment building Friday, according to the FDNY.
The smoke eater was backing down the stairs of a six-story building that caught fire in Hamilton Heights when he accidentally tumbled out a fifth-floor window and down a shaft behind the building, officials and sources said.
Sources told The Post that the mishap occurred while the firefighter was backing out a hose line.
“He received immediate medical care at the bottom of the shaft from the FDNY physicians on the scene and trauma paramedics,” FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker said in a press conference Friday. “Our rescue medics, rescue firefighters, got to him very quickly.”
“We were blessed today because we had the fire department’s physician on scene, as well as the elite rescue medics were at the location,” Chief of EMS Michael Fields said at the press conference.
The firefighter is listed in serious but stable condition at Harlem Hospital, according to the FDNY.
The firefighter had been battling a blaze that broke out on the second floor of an apartment building on West 145th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue just after 2:40 p.m., officials said.
FDNY Chief of Fire Operations Kevin Woods said that heavy winds blowing out of the front windows fueled the blaze as the flames spread all the way up to the sixth floor.
More than 200 firefighters responded to the massive blaze.
Five civilians and three other firefighters were also injured, but those are considered minor, Chief of EMS Michael Field said.
About 10 apartments were impacted, displacing up to 40 residents, according to the FDNY.
Additional reporting by Joe Marino
