Fire at her back, mother saves 4 children but stays with 5th too scared to jump

[Bent_Bladi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/ny...=1&oref=slogin

By AL BAKER
Published: November 17, 2006

Nabila Nazli was standing at a window, dangling her newborn above the sidewalk about 20 feet below. Flames were tearing through her second-story apartment in Brooklyn yesterday morning, and she was screaming for help.

Two men had raced to her aid, but they could not get into the wood-frame building. Thinking fast, they stretched out a quilt as a makeshift net.

Ms. Nazli dropped her month-old boy, tossed out his twin brother, and then helped two older children jump from the windowsill. All four landed safely.

But Ms. Nazli had a fifth child, a 5-year-old girl, who may have been afraid to jump. Ignoring pleas from neighbors, she refused to leave her. The mother and her daughter, Nimrah Naseer, were overcome by smoke and were unconscious when rescuers reached them.

“She did a great job in saving her children,” said Bob Treiland, 47, a firefighter from Ladder 166 who drove the first truck to arrive at the fire at 148 Bay 50th Street, off Cropsey Avenue, in the Gravesend neighborhood.

“I guess I know where she is coming from,” he said, adding that he has two small children. “She would rather die than leave her child up there, and it is just something about a parent’s instincts.”

It was not until Firefighter Treiland and his colleagues arrived and placed portable ladders against the building that they were able to climb into the apartment, find Ms. Nazli and her daughter lying unconscious about three feet apart in the front bedroom, and carry them out, officials said.

Yesterday, Ms. Nazli and Nimrah were listed in serious condition at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, where they had been transferred for treatment of their injuries, officials said. The other children, including the twins, Mugees and Mubeen, their brother Umar, 10, and sister Shamail, 4, were listed in stable condition at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, officials said.

Nine firefighters suffered minor injuries at the blaze, a Fire Department spokesman said. The fire broke out shortly before 3 a.m. and burned quickly. At one point, flames burned the siding of the neighboring house, officials said. About 60 firefighters from a dozen units responded, and the fire was under control shortly after 4 a.m., officials said.

Last year, in a fire nearby on the same street, a fire captain, Christopher Joyce, helped rescue an elderly man from a burning building and was honored by the department for his effort.

Late yesterday, fire marshals were still investigating the cause of the fire, which appeared to be accidental, said Tony Sclafani, a Fire Department spokesman. It apparently started on the second floor, toward the middle of the building, he said.

A neighbor, Davida Mirabile, 47, said she was using the computer in her home nearby when she heard what sounded like cats screaming and went to her front window and looked outside.

“The flames were huge,” she said. “They were shooting out of the roof.”

Her husband, John Mirabile, 46, and her son, Armand Rava, 28, ran out barefoot in their boxer shorts and T-shirts, and Ms. Mirabile followed, yelling, “Call 911, we need help.”

When they got to the fire, Ms. Nazli was at the second-floor window. An interior door to the stairwell could not be opened, neighbors said. Another neighbor, Thomas Gonzalez, 28, used a sledgehammer to try to break through the stairwell wall to climb upstairs.

“The woman was saying, ‘Save my baby. Save my baby,’ ” Mr. Mirabile said. “She was dangling the baby outside the window.”

As Ms. Nazli gasped for air, Mr. Mirabile prepared to catch the child. Then he had a second thought.

“I told a woman there, ‘Run inside and get a quilt,’ ” he said. “She was back in a second.”

Then, with his son, a cousin and two neighbors holding the quilt, they waited as the babies came down through the air, he said.

Fifteen seconds later, Shamail appeared at the window, crying. “You could tell she was scared,” Ms. Mirabile said. She came down, followed by Umar, who tumbled out and landed in the quilt on his back.

When Firefighter Treiland arrived, he climbed up the ladder and into the smoky room. He immediately found Ms. Nazli and pointed her out to his colleagues. Then, feeling with his hands, he found Nimrah, grabbed her, carried her to the window, and handed her to a firefighter on the ladder. Others took Ms. Nazli down the stairs.

Firefighter Treiland said Ms. Nazli did the right thing when she closed the door to the bedroom, thereby increasing “their survival time” by keeping the flames at bay a bit longer.

Relatives said Ms. Nazli, 38, and her husband, Mohammad Naseer, 50, who came from Pakistan about seven years ago, had lived in the apartment for three months but planned to move out next month.

Mr. Naseer said he was driving a limousine when the fire occurred. Standing outside the damaged building yesterday, he clutched all that was salvaged, a family photo album, as he praised his wife’s bravery.

“Every mother has the same nature,” he said. “They save their babies first. They don’t care about their lives.”

***********
I hope they're okay...

[Al-khiyal]

NEW YORK (AP) -- A woman was recovering Saturday from skin graft surgery for burns she suffered when she rescued her 4-week-old twin sons and two other children from a fire in their apartment, then went back to save a fifth child.

Firefighters found Nabila Nazli unconscious from smoke inhalation but still cradling 5-year-old daughter Nimrah to protect her from the flames.

''She was never really that brave before,'' 10-year-old Umar Naseer said about his mother. ''Before she was always worried about stuff like nutrition and all this boring stuff. Now she was saving our lives.''

Nazli, 38, and her daughter were both upgraded from critical to serious condition Saturday at Jacobi Medical Center, said hospital spokesman Michael Heller.

The blaze started in their second-floor apartment early Thursday, probably ignited by an extension cord, fire investigators said.

Nazli gathered four of the children in a front bedroom, then dropped the twins one at a time into a blanket held by neighbors who had heard screams.

Four-year-old Shamail and Umar jumped into the blanket, while Nazli realized that Nimrah was missing and went back to find her.

Nazli underwent several hours of skin graft surgery on Friday, authorities said.

NYC Mom improving after rescuing kids

[Nectar77]

Funny, I was talking to a friend about motherly instinct and how a mother has so much power and courage when it's about saving her children; Mothers are heroes to me

From what I've read here and also remembering my mother's reaction during the earth quakes in Algiers...It left me wondering how/where my mum got her strength and courage from? Will I ever be like her?

I mean I think am a coward comparing to her...there was a fire at our house once and I was so scared and shaky that I just fell to my knees and wept!!! I was so disappointed with my reaction, I always thought I was brave

[Cheba_Mami]

Thats a true mother we all hope to be like them and before we know it, we become like them. I hope they all survived.

[Bent_Bladi]

yep! whoever said that men where strong? ()