My girl was just doing her nails, so why could I hear sirens? By Brandi Garcia, 35
I knocked on my daughter Kennedy’s bedroom door, then popped my head in.
‘Changing your nail colour?’ I asked, finding her rifling through her nail polish collection.
‘Yeah, I just need to take this one off before practice,’ she said.
The team 14-year-old Kennedy played for didn’t allow nail polish, so she was always having to take it off and reapply it.
‘I’m going to sleep now,’ I
told her. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you too,’ she replied.
My hubby Brad was away with work, and I had to get up early next morning, so Kennedy’s sister Mellodi-Mai, 16, would
be keeping an eye on her, as well as her brothers Jaykob, 14,
Dexter, 13, and Patryk, 10.
So at 4am, I got ready and left for work, closing the door quietly.
After a busy morning, my break came around at 11.30am and I went to get a much-needed cup of coffee.
Just as I took my first sip, my phone beeped with a message from my mother-in-law Toni: How fast can you get home?
At the same moment, I could hear sirens nearby.
Sensing that something was seriously wrong, I jumped in my car and drove the short distance home, my phone pinging again on the way.
Pulling into my street, I saw fire engines outside the house.
As I got out of the car, I quickly checked my phone and another text from Toni read: The house is on fire.
My heart pounded through my chest as I ran to the house.
Please let the kids be OK, I thought.
When I got closer, I saw
them standing outside with
my neighbours, while a crew
of firemen fought a blaze in Kennedy’s room.
An ambulance pulled up, quickly followed by Toni.
‘What happened? Are you OK?’ I asked the kids.
Then I noticed blisters on Kennedy’s left arm.
‘I was using nail polish remover and I was too close
to a candle,’ Kennedy said calmly. ‘The bottle exploded
in my hand.’
I knew from my 15 years in the medical field that the pain hadn’t hit her yet.
So while Toni stayed with
the rest of the kids, I ushered Kennedy towards the ambulance.
When she lay down on the stretcher, she began screaming in agony, and paramedics gave her the highest dose of pain medication they could.
To see the extent of the burns, they had to cut her T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms
off her.
Somehow she’d mustered the strength to put them on after she’d got burnt.
It shocked me to see her
body covered in blisters and her skin melting away.
'How fast can you get home?'
‘It’s so hot, Mummy, it burns,’ she cried.
I tried to soothe her, and then she asked: ‘How bad is it?’
‘You definitely have some second- and third-degree
burns,’ I replied. ‘But you’ll be OK.’
When we got to the hospital, doctors quickly evaluated her before she was taken to the burns unit for treatment.
Brad soon arrived and, out
of Kennedy’s earshot, he told me: ‘I’ve been to see the kids
at Mum’s and they’re fine…
But I went to the house, and
it’s completely destroyed.’
I knew, though, that I had to put that to the back of my mind and focus on Kennedy.
She screamed in agony when nurses came to pop her blisters and it broke my heart.
Then they dressed the wounds using cream to help prevent infections.
‘She has third-degree burns on her left arm and second-degree on her torso, stomach and leg,’ a doctor told me.
She needed skin-graft surgery, and even with all the medication, the
pain was so bad she could barely move.
But we just took things day by day. And with the help of physiotherapy, she was discharged after 13 days.
Although Kennedy’s scars were visible, they healed well and she was soon wearing shorts again with confidence.
‘I’m so proud of you, Kennedy,’ I told her.
We lost everything in the
fire aside from a few family mementos, and we had to
stay in a hotel with the kids
for six weeks.
It was hard starting over again with nothing. But we found a new house, and
friends and neighbours rallied round to help us furnish it.
And all that really mattered was our kids made it out alive.
Mellodi-Mai and Dexter had heard Kennedy screaming and kicked her door in.
They’d pulled her out, then closed the door to try to stop the fire spreading.
My kids were so brave, and it shows how important fire safety knowledge really is.
Now, Kennedy wears compression garments to help her scars heal further. She’s on the list for laser treatment too.
She’s doing well and has such a positive attitude.
We’ve become a no-candles household.
I’m sharing my story to show just how important it is to be aware of your surroundings, especially with anything flammable nearby.