Talk Bronx New York

They walked the halls of the Bronx courthouse slowly, a little haltingly, but their steps were filled with purpose. Dress blue FDNY uniforms covered their many scars.

Firefighter Eugene Stolowski’s neck can’t move; he must turn his upper body to see sideways. Retired Firefighter Jeffery Cool stands straight, belying constant pain.

“We’re not supposed to be alive today,” they both like to say.
SEE: FDNY FIREFIGHTERS SAVE DROWNING WOMAN

Three years and eight months ago, they both clinically died on the cold pavement 50 feet below a burning Bronx apartment. They had jumped because there was no other escape.

Through their miraculous recoveries, they have awaited the trial of three people accused of creating the disastrous conditions in the building that forced them and four other firefighters to leap, two of them to their deaths.

“Our lives changed on Jan. 23, 2005,” said Cool, referring to Black Sunday. “You want to close this chapter, but it can’t close until this case is finished. Every day, I look in the mirror and see the scars. I want to see justice.”

Cool, Stolowski and the other two firefighters who survived the plunge, Joseph DiBernardo and Brendan Cawley, have attended the court appearances since manslaughter indictments were handed up in March 2006. So have relatives of the deceased, John Bellew and Lt. Curtis Meyran.

Last week, Cool and Stolowski heard the trial postponed again, this time until Dec. 1.

Both the defense and the prosecution say the lengthy wait has been unavoidable.

“There were motion delays,” said a spokesman for the Bronx district attorney’s office. “The defense has every right to file motions.”

Then one of the defense lawyers got sick. Now the prosecutor has medical issues.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Steven Barrett told the lawyers during a bench conference, “We’re on a slow track,” and urged them to be ready on the new date.

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Hero officers Lloyd Blackburn (l.) and James Treadwell with Luisa Abreu and her two kids, whom the cops saved from an inferno in their Bronx building.

Fire sparked on E. 147th St. building’s fifth floor and quickly ripped through the hallway.

Two NYPD officers save three children from burning Bronx building

A pair of unflinching NYPD truancy officers raced into a burning Bronx building Wednesday and pulled three children to safety - as shattered glass and smoldering plaster rained down from the roof.

Officers James Treadwell and Lloyd Blackburn realized they could not wait for backup as they drove up to the inferno at the five-story walkup just after 11 a.m.

“As we come up to the building, there were flames shooting out of the windows,” said Treadwell, who had been flagged down by a terrified passerby.

“There were huge flames,” the 17-year NYPD veteran said. “There was debris coming down.”

The fire had sparked on the E. 147th St. building’s fifth floor and quickly ripped through the hallway, witnesses said. Because the building’s smoke detectors failed, several residents were unaware their lives were in danger, the cops said.

“We saw it, and we thought about the people inside,” said Blackburn, an 11-year veteran. “We just had to get them out.”

Luisa Abreu, 26, was watching her two children in her second-floor apartment and talking by phone with a friend on the fifth floor - and neither woman had any idea their building was burning, she said.

“No detectors went off,” said Abreu. “The only reason I knew about the fire was that the officers were banging on the doors and walls, screaming, ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’”

When Treadwell and Blackburn reached Abreu’s home, they scooped up the panicked woman’s year-old son, Jovi, and 4-month-old daughter, Jamie Lynn, and ran out of the building.

“He grabbed my son and ran through the fire,” said Abreu, a hostess at a midtown Outback restaurant. “Fireballs were falling from the roof. … They almost hit me.

“If it wouldn’t have been for the officers, I would’ve still been inside with my children.”

The cops then ran back into the building to save another child, she said.

Firefighters arrived moments later, helped other residents evacuate and battled the intense two-alarm fire. The blaze was declared under control at 12:10 p.m.

One tenant and six firefighters were taken to hospitals for treatment of nonlife-threatening injuries, officials said.

SOURCE: NYPD

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