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by TOM RAFTERY and NICOLE BODE
Two firefighters saved an elderly couple from death yesterday by snatching their limp bodies from a second-floor bathroom and carrying them down a smoke-choked stairway to safety.
"We opened the door and we heard yelling and moaning. We knew time was short because of their age," said Firefighter Fred Hess of Ladder Co. 129, who made the rescue at the home on 149th St. in Flushing along with Lt. Albert Loyola.
"My boss was able to put the elderly woman over his shoulders. I had to drag [the husband] down the steps - there was all this hot smoke and gas up the stairwell."
The couple, identified by neighbors as Herbert Cyrlin, 81, and his 80-year-old wife, Sylvia, were rushed by ambulance to Flushing Hospital Medical Center, where they were treated for smoke inhalation and released, hospital officials said.
Fire officials said the blaze was sparked by careless smoking on a couch on the first floor of the two-story brick residence. It began just before 2:30 a.m. and was brought under control within a half-hour.
By the time firefighters arrived, the home already was filled with flames, which Hess attempted to beat back with a fire extinguisher.
As he did, a call came over the radio that there were people trapped upstairs in the bathroom.
Hess and Loyola crawled through searing heat up to the second floor, where they discovered the frail couple huddled in the bathroom. Downstairs, the fire was still raging.
"The husband was saying, 'Take my wife first,'" Hess said.
Loyola flipped the woman over his shoulder while Hess hoisted the man and quickly rushed them through the heat and flames in the stairwell and out to a waiting ambulance.
It was Hess' third rescue in three months, but the four-year fireman says he's no hero.
"It's a team effort. The trust you have with your company, knowing they're going to be there with you, that's what enables you to do your job and be in harm's way," said Hess, 35, of Mount Sinai, L.I.
With Greg Gittrich
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