Three pulled from burning apartment

Monday, May 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

A Las Vegas woman and her two grandsons are safe this morning after neighbors yanked security bars off a window and pulled the three out of their burning apartment.

Damage was estimated at $50,000. The fire destroyed the kitchen.

Las Vegas Fire Department was called about 11:10 p.m. Sunday to the apartment at 661 Desert Lane, near Pinto Lane and Martin Luther King Boulevard.

When firefighters arrived, they found flames shooting out the front door, said fire department spokesman Timothy Szymanski.

They saw five men helping a woman and two young boys out a bedroom window "just after they literally pulled a set of burglar bars from the wall of the building," Szymanski said.

The five men told firefighters they heard the screams of Leticia Diaz, 52, the grandmother.

The men, identified as Jose Luis Escobar, Jose Constanza, Joseph Bohnstedt, Mendez Othoniel and Juan Francico Mejia, pulled off the burglary bars, which were held in place with long wood bolts, Szymanski said.

Diaz handed the men her two grandsons, ages 2 and 4, before she climbed out to safety, Szymanski said.

The fire started in the kitchen from a pot left cooking on the stove, investigators said.