ALLENTOWN, Pa. — It was a dramatic scene in Allentown early Friday morning when a fast-moving fire forced a family to have to make a split-second decision to save their baby.
Neighbors told 69 News they awoke to alarms and thick smoke. When they stepped outside, an 11-month-old baby was thrown out of a second-story window into the arms of an adult on the ground.
Surveillance video shared with 69 News shows the moment help arrived as police officers starting banging on doors to get people out.
Fire officials responded to the 900 block of North Emery Street around 3:30 a.m. They say the fire started in the basement of one home and that three people were rescued. Five of the home’s six occupants were taken to the hospital.
Next door neighbor Evelyn Carmona immediately knew something was off.
“Three o’clock in the morning, I heard the alarms. I see smoke in my apartment. I grabbed my two dogs and my bird and my bibles, and I put them down in the living room and then I came outside,” Carmona recalled.
Carmona said her next-door neighbor’s home was on fire, and she witnessed them throwing their baby out a second-story window to safety.
“They catch him, they catch him in their arms. I called 911 right away,” Carmona said.
Allentown firefighters rescued three people from the property. Two were hanging out of second floor windows. One person was rescued in the back of the home.
Carmona’s daughter, Sasha Caro, knows the family next door.
“No one wants to have to wake up at night and live that moment, especially with an 11-month-old baby. Me as a mom, that would be my first reaction — get my kids out. Material things you can replace, but not a life. Right now, they have nothing. They lost everything,” Caro stated.
Luis Reyes was at his girlfriend’s house two doors down. Reyes told us the block is tight-knit and looks out for each other. As of Friday night, Reyes said, four of the five family members are out of the hospital.
“Thank God everybody is alive,” Reyes stated.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.