March 14, 2005 -- A 99-year-old woman cheated death yesterday after Brooklyn's Bravest pulled her from a smoky blaze, officials said.
"She's in there! She's in there!" the terrified son of Mickelina Devito cried as flames and heavy smoke poured out of a first-floor window of the Bensonhurst home in 76th Street around 6:30 a.m.
Twelve units and 60 firefighters arrived to battle the blaze.
Firefighters John Carlson and Brian Mooney of Ladder Co. 168 entered the building.
"There was zero visibility," Carlson said. "We crawled around on our hands and knees."
Carlson eventually found Devito unconscious in her bed. He and Mooney then removed her from the building.
She was listed in stable condition in Maimonides Hospital last night.
"She's very feisty," said her son-in-law, Michael Gallo. "For a 99-year-old, she's still got all her marbles."
"It's just amazing," Carlson said. "I guess it wasn't her time. She wasn't ready."
Neither was Viola Waldron, whom firefighters found unconscious hours earlier in a first-floor bedroom of a burning Kensington building.
Firefighters found Waldron, who is 83 and suffers from Alzheimer's, unconscious in her bed. She is in Kings County Hospital with third-degree burns on her back and smoke inhalation.
"She's not doing so good," her son said.
Another resident and a firefighter were also treated at the hospital.
Four other residents of the building, including Gallo's wife, Giuseppina, were at Maimonides in stable condition.
Additional reporting by Tatiana Deligiannakis
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