BROOKLYN — Two people were hospitalized after a Molotov cocktail exploded in a Bensonhurst apartment building early Thursday morning, according to officials.
The explosive caused a fire inside the entryway at the 83rd Street red brick, three-story home at about 3:01 a.m., according to the FDNY and a first-floor tenant.
The tenant, who just gave her first name, Angie, said she heard a "big bang" and then went outside to see what happened with one of her four teenage children.
They saw a burning Bacardi bottle stuffed with newspaper and cardboard on the front porch.
"We were trying to put it out," she said.
The mother and daughter couldn't put out the flames so they ran back inside the apartment to call police. Angie then noticed smoke coming in from the hallway.
A woman lives on the second floor of the building with her six children said she heard "screaming" downstairs, but was not alarmed until a police officer started banging on her door.
"His voice was choked," Deena Brus, 41, said. "He was struggling to breath"
Brus quickly woke up her children, who are all between seven and 13 years old, and brought them out of the building with the help of firefighters.
The device started a fire in the entryway to the building, but did not spread to any of the apartments, Brus added.
The two injured people were taken to Lutheran Medical Center in stable condition. It was not immediately clear if they were residents of building or emergency responders.
There were no arrests and the investigation is ongoing, an NYPD spokesman said.
"This is my house, my children are in this home. There's a family upstairs," Angie said. "It's dangerous because there are children here."
