‘We’re so grateful to neighbour for saving Duke’s life’
COUPLE ‘LOST EVERYTHING’ IN HOUSE FIRE
ACOUPLE who moved to North Wales to start a new life and pursue their dreams have told how they lost everything in a house blaze.
Jason Underwood was just about to start playing in a cricket match for Pwllheli when he received a phone call telling him his home in Madryn Terrace, Llanbedrog, was on fire.
He and his girlfriend, Michelle La Saux, 24, had only moved into the cot- Fire picture: JOHN LACEY tage two months earlier after relocating to the Llŷn peninsula from Cape Town in South Africa, so he could pursue his dream of becoming a cricketer.
The 28 year-old said: “I could see the flames from Llanbedrog from the cricket field in Pwllheli. My first thought was for our dog Duke, who we have recently flown over from South Africa.
“When I got closer and saw the flames I thought the worst.”
Mr Underwood ran up the road, and was told his beloved dog had thankfully been saved by neighbour Paul Dickens, who managed to break in through the back door.
“I’m just so grateful to Paul for saving Duke,” said Mr Underwood. “He’s an American Bully dog, a rare breed, and is only two and half years old and we adore him. After the fire he was really shaken up, but we took him to the beach and he calmed down and he’s fine now.”
Mr Underwood says the couple will have to start again from scratch.
“We’ve lost everything, A to Z, and hardly anything was insured so we’ll have to start again,” he said. “The house, which we were so happy in, has been destroyed and we are living with my cricket friends at the moment.”
But he says the community has been ‘amazing’ following the incident, which happened at 10am on Saturday.
He added: “People have turned up with clothes for us and given us a lot of emotional support, I’d like to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts.”
The cause of the fire is unknown.