Brooklyn - Hero neighbor saves 7-year-old girl who fell from third-story window

A 7-YEAR-OLD GIRL who fell from a third-story window in Brooklyn Monday escaped injury when she was caught by a hero neighbor.

“I just prayed that I’d catch her,” said the girl’s savior, Steve St. Bernard, 52, an MTA bus driver. “I was right underneath her.”

The girl crawled out through an empty space next to the air conditioner in the window of her family’s apartment in the Coney Island Houses about 2:10 p.m., cops and witnesses said.

She created the opening by pulling aside the accordion-style plastic partition attached to the side of the air conditioner, witnesses said.

After crawling out, she clowned around, singing and dancing on top of the air conditioner as a crowd of kids looked on from below before losing her balance and falling, witnesses said.

St. Bernard, who lives in the housing complex, was alerted by the cries of onlookers.

“I went over there to make sure if she fell I could catch her,” St. Bernard said. “I’m not a hero — anybody would have done it. I did it out of normal instincts.”

One of his own four children is the same age as the child who fell, he said.

He said he was just worried he might not manage to catch the child. “I thought to myself, let me get over there and catch her. I just hope I don’t drop her.”

The catch knocked St. Bernard, a father of four, to the ground.

“She fell and she put her hands out,” said witness Jesse Padilla, 9. “Her head hit a bush, but Steve caught the rest of her body.”

The lucky girl was uninjured but taken to Coney Island Hospital as a precaution, police said.

Her mother would not talk to reporters Monday night or give her name.

St. Bernard was treated and released from the same hospital for a torn tendon in his left bicep from making the lucky save.

The family was not required to have a window guard installed if there was an air-conditioning unit in the window, a NYCHA spokesman said.

Air conditioners are required to have permanent, structurally sound barriers that leave no opening greater than 41/2 inches in homes with children under 10 in New York City.

NYCHA is investigating the situation, the spokesman said.