Dad saves children from burning home

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This article was published 27/01/2022 (1703 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A father frantically tried to save his children by repeatedly running into his home as flames ravaged the single-storey structure in Winnipeg’s West End Thursday morning.

“The dad of the house kept running in and out, grabbing his kids. He ended up getting them all out, but the one kid was severely burned,” neighbour Richard Rivard said.

He estimated the boy to be about 10 years old.

After hearing screams and noticing smoke coming out of the home at 323 Simcoe St. just before 6 a.m., Rivard and another neighbour, Thomas Watt, jumped into action.

Watt, 50, and Rivard, 43, said they felt helpless because the fire was so intense.

“We went there and kids were still trapped in the house,” Rivard said, sitting in his living room Thursday afternoon.

“We couldn’t get in, we tried getting in, there was just so much smoke we couldn’t think about going in there.”

They watched as the father of the children went back inside — again and again.

Nine people were rushed to hospital, including the critically injured boy.

Just before 6 a.m., firefighters were summoned to the blaze, just south of St. Matthews Avenue. They managed to put it out within a half-hour. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.

Watt and Rivard and others who live in the house next door took the victims to their home and put out a mattress on the living room floor for them to sit on.

“It was freezing out this morning, they came out in shorts and things, because they were sleeping. We just did the best we could for them,” Rivard said.

Thursday afternoon, parts of the sidewalk on Simcoe Street were coated with ice, the indent of a winding firehose frozen in place. A child’s cartoon character blanket lay littered in front of the grey house with its front door and window boarded up, as police tape cordoned off the lawn.

Around the back of the house, fire-charred debris sat next to a porch, where the neighbours said the fire appeared to have been sparked. The windows were boarded up, too, while Winnipeg Police Service officers sat in a patrol car, watching over the scene.

The city said it called in additional paramedic units to assess and transport the victims, including the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service’s major incident response vehicle, a full-sized bus outfitted for medical care.

Four adults were taken to hospital by ambulance in unstable condition; four children were transported by the major response vehicle in stable condition

No update on their condition was provided.

Twitter: @erik_pindera

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca