Red Cross Helping Residents Displaced By North Brunswick Fire

NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- The Red Cross is helping residents who were displaced by a fire in North Brunswick Tuesday morning.

The 2-alarm fire broke out around 8:20 a.m. in an apartment building on Willowbrook Drive, the North Brunswick Fire Department said. Investigators said the fire started in apartment 100 and then spread.

"As soon as we have guys on scene, the ceiling fell on two of our firefighters, but were not injured," said Fire Chief Ken Graulich.

Video from the scene showed heavy smoke and flames shooting from the building as firefighters poured water on the blaze.

"The second floor was in flames," said resident Jigna Patel. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"I saw the fire was spreading," another resident said. "People started running out."

Residents said people were trapped inside, but that someone driving by stopped to help get them out, CBS2's Christine Sloan reported.

"He stopped his car, ran into the building, thank goodness the doors were open, and he started banging on people's doors, 'There's a fire, get out,'" one woman said. "The woman was there with her baby on the patio, screaming, so they coached her to throw the baby  down -- she was on the second floor and she had to jump down."

Natalia Wahid has to make a decision no mom should ever have to face.

"Just dropped the baby in his hands. He was just like drop it, drop it. I was so scared he would not catch her," she said.

The hero who caught the 10-month-old was North Brunswick patrolman Nate Nicholson.

"The police man say, just jump, just jump," she recalled.

As flames engulfed the apartment she wanted to go back in to save her pets.

"So I started calling them, but they just disappeared in the black smoke inside the apartment," she said.

The officer begged her to jump.

"The smoke was behind me, so I just jumped and left them," she said.

Natalia, heartbroken, but grateful that her little girl Maryam is safe.

"They checked her carbon dioxide level in the blood. It came out okay," she said.

Investigators said the fire started in unit 100, right next to Wahid's apartment.

"As soon as we had guys on scene, we had ceiling fall on two of our firefighters, but were not injured. They were able to get out of the structure quickly," Ken Graulich said.

Fire investigators say everyone is accounted for, but said more than eight units went up in flames.

It's unclear if anyone was hurt.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.