NEW YORK (AP) – A Bronx mother, cornered by smoke and flames, prayed as she tossed her 1-month-old baby from a third-floor window to the crowd below.

“I said, ‘God, please save my son,”‘ a weeping Tracinda Foxe, 30, told the Daily News in Thursday editions. “I prayed that someone would catch him and save his life.”

Her prayers were answered by Felix Vazquez, 39, a Housing Authority supervisor and former lifeguard, who made the catch and gave the baby, Eric Guzman, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“I didn’t think,” Vazquez, a father of three, said after the Wednesday morning rescue. “I just reacted.”

Moments later, Firefighters D.J. Martin and Bobby Eustace burst into the burning apartment, found a hysterical Foxe and gave her an oxygen mask. Mother and son were treated at a hospital and released. The new hero, by the way, is also a catcher on his local baseball team.

AP-ES-12-15-05 0825EST