‘grateful’ to be alive
“It took me two seconds to get to that fire escape,” said Bryant, who had lived in the building for 33 years.
The scene grew surreal as she waited for help.
“When I was on the fire escape, there was one woman completely naked on the fire escape,” she said. “I kept screaming, ‘Give her a coat.’ ”
Bryant also yelled to a neighbor who remained in his unit to throw her socks to keep her bare feet warm.
“I was screaming at him, ‘Give me some socks,’ ” she said. “And then he threw them at me and I got them.”
Bryant said she was a close friend of victim Maria Batiz, 58, who died clutching her 7-monthold granddaughter, Amora Batiz, in a bathtub.
Batiz lived in the apartment right below Bryant. Their two daughters grew up playing with one another.
“Every time I look at the TV, I just see those faces,” Bryant said. “You know how long I knew Maria? Forever.”
She said she keeps trying to figure out why her dear friend couldn’t escape.
“She (must have not) known how to get out,” she said. “I just can’t figure why she couldn’t get out. It just keeps going in my mind.”
Cannon said residents in the five-story, 26-unit building had a communal bond.
“It’s really eating me up because you help people, you walk down the stairs and see these people, say, ‘Hi, sister,’ ” Cannon, 37, said.
“So many good people from this building that I’ve known for years that I’ve lost.”
Michael Morgan, 36, said he survived the fire by a stroke of luck — he had gone out to give his $900 rent check to the property management company. He had lived on the top floor of the building for six years.
Four members of the same family — Karen Stewart-Francis, 37; her daughters Kelesha, 7, and Kylie, 2, and her niece Shawntay Young, 19 — died in an apartment on his floor, he said.
“If I had been home, I would have been in the same predicament,” Morgan said. “When I look out my window, her window’s right there. If they couldn’t make it to the fire escape, I wouldn’t have.”
Even though he wasn’t there, Morgan’s two four-legged friends — his Yorkie, Sparkle, and his cat, Smokey — were trapped in his apartment.
“I wasn’t there but my pets were, so my main concern was to get my cat and dog out,” he said. Both animals survived. Sparkle barreled out of the apartment when responders knocked down its door. A firefighter scooped her up as she ran down the building’s steps, he said.
The pooch suffered smoke inhalation and was placed in an oxygen tank for a few days. She and Morgan are to be reunited Tuesday.
Smokey fared much better, Morgan said, and was staying at a friend’s house until he could find permanent housing.
FDNY officials said a 3-yearold boy in a first-floor apartment started the inferno while playing with a kitchen stove.
Residents have accused the boy’s mom of bolting without alerting anyone. They say she also left her apartment door open, allowing the fast-moving blaze to whip through the building.
Bryant’s husband, Albert Bryant, said that the mom — who watched the building go up in flames from across the street — had only lived there for about a year.
“She was relatively young, 22, trying to raise two kids,” he said. “She was a kid herself.”
Fernando Batiz, 54, who lost his sister Maria in the fire, came to the building Sunday carrying a photo of his dead sibling. He said he was angry at the mother of the 3-year-old boy but forgave her, knowing that she likely panicked.
“It would have been beautiful if they would have locked the door,” he said. “It would have saved lives. It would have been something much different.”