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by ALISON GENDAR
The Queens tenement billowed with smoke and flames, but Firefighter Victor Rosa Jr. had already pulled two women from the inferno.
On his hands and knees, he crawled back a third time to look for survivors.
Alone in the third-floor hallway, the eight-year FDNY veteran and father of two found 4-year-old Alexandra Sandovar unconscious. Cradling her limp body - the same familiar weight as his own 4-year-old son - Rosa crawled past the fire-filled stairwell and carried the child to the street.
"Once I had her, there was no way I was letting go," the modest member of Queens Ladder Co. 138 said yesterday before receiving the Fire Department's highest medal of valor.
Rosa was one of 38 firefighters and two Queens companies, Engine Co. 298 and Ladder Co. 138, singled out for bravery at the FDNY's annual Medal Day ceremony on the steps of City Hall.
"They've demonstrated courage, bravery, sacrifice - the qualities that define firefighters," said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta.
Six of the medals, including Rosa's James Gordon Bennett Medal, were issued for rescues from a single fire - in Jackson Heights on Dec. 15, started by a tipped candle. The blaze killed a couple, but 15 other people - including Alexandra - survived.
Firefighter Jeffery Cool of Bronx Rescue Co. 3 was honored for his daring June 12, 2004, roof rescue of a man trapped on the fourth floor, frozen with fear near an open window. Cool grabbed the 200-pound man, lifted him over the window sill and, holding tight, rappelled out the window on his fire rope.
On Jan. 23, Cool was one of six firefighters who leaped 50 feet down out of a burning building. Two firefighters were killed, and the others seriously injured.
Cool and his firefighter buddy Joseph DiBernardo believe they were among the survivors because they shaved 10 feet off their plunge by using Cool's personal safety rope. Cool plans to spend his upcoming retirement making sure firefighters across the nation are equipped with the ropes.
"Today is bittersweet. A career I love was cut short, but it's great to be here, to be honored this way," Cool said.
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