‘I’ll always be haunted by what I saw’
TWO miracle survivors of the Grenfell Tower inferno escaped from the 22nd floor two hours after the blaze began.
Naomi Li, 32, and her cousin Lydia Liao, 23, are believed to be the only people still alive from that storey.
The 14 other residents on the 22nd, including five children, are all thought to have died – along with at least 12 people who lived on the floor above.
Yesterday IT worker Naomi said: “I count myself lucky every day. I will always be haunted by the images I saw that night.”
She revealed that the pair escaped by fumbling their way down the smoke-filled stairwell with a wet towel and cardigan over their faces to stop the toxic fumes overcoming them.
As they stepped over dead bodies they tried to convince themselves they were piles of clothes so they weren’t gripped by terror.
They were saved by firefighters on the fifth or sixth floor just as fumes were about to overcome them.
Naomi had earlier phoned her husband, Lee Li-Chapman, 29, who was on a business trip to Kuala Lumpur.
He spent the next two hours in horror ® and disbelief as he watched the tower being consumed by flames, while trying to talk calmly to his wife trapped inside. Naomi said: “We couldn’t see anything through the dense smoke, just very blurred lights. I tried to call Lydia on every floor to make sure she was behind me. Lydia fell over a body and screamed. “I told her to get up and that we needed to focus on getting down. I kept telling her and myself that they weren’t bodies and they were someone’s clothes. “That was probably the saddest experience in our lives. I was just determined we would get out. “Every breath felt like someone was trying to choke me. We moved fast, but the stairwell never seemed to end. Thirty seconds later and I don’t think we’d have made it.” ¬Ê At least 700 residents were left in fear of another disaster after an arsonist torched a discarded sofa in 32-storey Cleveland Tower in Birmingham city centre on Saturday. Residents were told to stay inside until told otherwise but made their way onto the stairwells in tears, fearing they would be trapped inside.