74-year-old fire victim grateful to be alive
“Eaton all right?,” 74-yearold Avril Morgan shouted as she rushed to the scene of a fire that completely destroyed the room in which she lived on Rosemary Lane in downtown Kingston yesterday.
Yes!,” said a female, who was among a group of people that had gathered as firemen and some residents tried to salvage what they could from the seven-bedroom house.
“Thank God,” Morgan exhaled in relief.
As she looked on in shock, she muttered: “Mi nuh save nutten. Nutten at all. Everything burn up, even mi phone.”
“Mi live deh fi 30 years. A mi and mi granddaughter lived there alone. She a 11,” Morgan told THE STAR.
And despite her loss, she said that she is grateful that the fire did not start in the night, as rather than debris, the fire personnel would be removing bodies.
“Thank the Lord that it is not night. I saw the sparkles last night, and I ask the Lord to carry mi through di night,” she said.
Morgan said that she is also thankful that a nearby printery was spared.
VERY NICE TO ME
“What I am glad for is that the businessman place don’t burn down cause a him build the fence and he was very nice to me,” she told our news team as pointed to a concrete wall. she
“God nah go give wi more than wi can bear because mi used to bear a lot in there,” she continued.
As Morgan tried to hold back the tears, she was consoled by another female community member and a nun.
“Nuh worry yuhself, man. God a go build yuh up,” the community member said to her.
And even as some residents helped to save what they could, others lamented that firefighters were slow to respond after they were called.
“A more than half an hour before the fire truck come. This a wickedness,” one woman in the crowd shouted.
Another man, who was also unsatisfied with the time that the two units from Trench Town and one from York Park took to arrive, voiced his displeasure at the fire personnel who were telling the crowd to move back.
“A we alone did deh yah before unuh come enuh, cause if a unuh alone di whole place bun dung,” the man who had two buckets in his hand said.
An illegal electrical connection is believed to be the cause of the fire that destroyed two rooms on the house, while severely damaging others.