A firefighter lost his life tonight when he fell four stories while battling a fire in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Officials were uncertain as to whether the unidentified 23-year-old member of Ladder 146 took a tumble from the roof of 146 Leonard St. or from a cherry picker.
“It looked like he just hurtled and hit the ground. I couldn’t even scream,” said neighbor Shatiner Getty, 27.
“He was standing on the roof. It looked like he was overcome by smoke … There was so much smoke on that level.”
She said it appeared as if the firefighter had lost his balance.
Another witness said that when the body hit the ground, “it sounded like an explosion.”
Sources said the firefighter, who had only been on the job about a year and a half, suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
The Leonard Street site housed a four-story, formerly industrial building that had been “illegally” converted into residential lofts, neighbors said.
It took 60 firefighters an hour to bring the fire, which started on the top floor at 4:55 p.m., under control, officials said.
Additional reporting by Murray Weiss