Neighbors help put out apartment fire

      Las Vegas firefighters and neighbors worked together Tuesday morning to save the life of a 62-year-old woman found unconscious in her burning apartment.
      Lucille Frenz remained in University Medical Center's intensive care unit Tuesday night. Another woman, whose name was not released, jumped out of a second-floor window during the fire at The Fountains at Smoke Ranch, 2300 Rock Springs Drive near U.S. Highway 95, and was in the hospital's trauma unit with spinal injuries.
      Upon learning Frenz was going to live, firefighters at the scene high-fived each other and slapped backs in celebration.
      "To tell you the truth, she didn't have much longer to live," said Allan Albaitis, a 15-year veteran of the Las Vegas Fire Department who went into the burning apartment to rescue the woman with Capt. Cal Henrie and rookie Kenneth Teeters. "It's a great feeling, but it wasn't just one guy doing it. Everything had to go just right."
      Frenz later told investigators the fire started accidentally when she was refilling a cigarette lighter with lighter fluid. She was smoking at the time, she said, and the fluid ignited her and the couch she was sitting on in the living room. She made her way to the bathroom, where she passed out.
      Residents were alerted to the fire about 7:30 a.m. when their smoke detectors went off and they smelled smoke in the eight-unit apartment building.
      His voice still shaking with emotion two hours later, Matt Frady, 35, described how he kicked in the metal-encased front door of Frenz's apartment with his bare foot. The smoke was so thick and the flames so hot, he couldn't go inside.
      "I was just yelling, 'Sweetheart! Honey! Are you in there?' " he said.
      Noticing her car still parked in the lot, he was sure she was inside, but neither he nor neighbor Sidney Metoyer, 38, could see through the smoke. They emptied three fire extinguishers into the apartment through the door and a bedroom window.
      When firefighters arrived, it took roughly 100 gallons of water to put out the blaze, department spokesman Timothy Szymanski said. It looked like Frenz might not make it.
      "She was just lifeless," Frady said.
      Paramedics Tommy Grayson and Mark Robles performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Frenz, and by the time she was wheeled into the ambulance, Szymanski said, she showed signs of breathing and had a faint pulse.
      Szymanski was on his cellular phone to the hospital as the firefighters cleaned up after their rescue. "The nurse told me to tell you guys she's going to make it," Szymanski said. "She said you guys were awesome."
      Damage from the fire, which was mostly contained to her apartment, is estimated at $20,000. Some neighboring apartments were damaged by smoke.