Spring Valley, NY – Jewish Fire Fighters Praised For Saving Victim In Serious Fire.

Spring Valley, NY – She expects to spend her time in the burn unit of a Bronx hospital, but Shirley Lee is still grateful: Her father is alive, thanks, she said, to the fast work of Spring Valley rescue workers.

“With their quick thinking, their quick action, their response – it’s the only reason why he’s alive,” Lee, 51, of Middletown, said yesterday. “It has to be. It’s amazing.”

Francis H. Lee, 80, was pulled from a fire in his ground-floor apartment at the four-story Harvest House complex on Union Road. Spring Valley Fire Chief Michael Johnson said firefighters Chaim Rosenberg and Abe Rabinowitz crawled through Lee’s smoke-filled apartment until they found the disabled man lying unconscious next to his bed. Investigators think Lee was smoking in bed, possibly causing the fire.

Rosenberg and Rabinowitz pulled Lee into a hallway, where firefighter Scott Maia and Spring Valley Police Officer Carl Johnson were waiting. Maia and Johnson performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation until Lee was put into the care of Spring Hill Ambulance Corps workers, who took him to Nyack Hospital.

Michael Johnson hailed rescue workers for their combined efforts. “Without the cooperation,” he said, “we wouldn’t have been able to save his life.” [journalnews]