‘If they had told us to save ourselves, I am sure most other people would have been alive’
FLORA NEDA can’t quite believe that, despite suffering a muscle-wasting illness, she made it out of Grenfell Tower alive. Her husband, a former Afghan army officer who was fitter and stronger, didn’t.
Flora, 53, and her son Farhad, 25, were the only survivors from the top floor, the 23rd storey of Grenfell Tower. Around 2am, at a time when London Fire Brigade was still, according to reports, telling residents to “stay put” and await rescue, Flora and Farhad took the decision to save themselves.
Saber Neda, 57, who ran a chauffeur business, delayed leaving flat 205, their home for the past 20 years. Four women from the floors below had sought refuge as the flames and smoke engulfed the building and Saber had remained behind to help those women, one of them frail.
Flora is convinced that had the building been evacuated immediately, the loss of life could have been greatly reduced. It is a key issue for the Grenfell inquiry, and Sir Martin Moore-bick, its chairman, to examine.
“If the fire brigade had evacuated straight away, everybody would have got out alive,” said Flora, the sadness etched on her face.
She spent five days in a coma in intensive care and a further two weeks in hospital suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation. Farhad had carried her on his back to safety.
“The fire brigade knew the fire is very huge and they could not control it. At least if they had told us you must save yourselves, I am sure most other people would have been alive, in my opinion,” she said in comments that will inevitably upset firefighters who worked through the night, rescuing 67 Grenfell residents.
Saber, rather than be burnt alive, decided to jump from a window, plunging to his death. Before he did so, he made a last phone call, a recording of which was played at the opening of the Grenfell Inquiry this week. “Goodbye. We are now leaving this world. Goodbye. I hope I haven’t disappointed you. Goodbye to all.”
Flora is critical of the fire brigade’s “stay put” policy. “We got out some time after two o’clock. It took us a long time to get down 23 flights. I have given my statement to the police. The organisation of the fire brigade was wrong.
“If we put the council, the cladding, the housing on one side, we still have to talk about the fire brigade on the other. This is very important to me.
“They should have done their duty to rescue the people or told people to get out. They have to accept the risk and the responsibility of their duty.”
Flora recalled what happened on the night although she recognises her timings are not precise. Her evidence is harrowing.
The family had returned home late from her sister’s just before fire broke out on June 14. “If we had been 10 minutes later, this would not have happened to my husband. There was no fire and nothing to see when we got in. When we got up to the flat, the ventilation was making a very big noise. My husband was working early morning and he wanted to go to sleep but the noise was disturbing us. After about half an hour, I opened the door to see if anybody was coming to fix the ventilator. When I did, I could smell something. It was like an electric wire burning and I came back.
“I went to go to sleep but something felt wrong. I didn’t go to bed because I was worried by the smell and the noise – and the lift was now not working. I opened the door again to the landing and saw my neighbour. She was a very young girl with her mum. They were running very fast.
“I saw them running down the stairs. I don’t know why they came back, but they turned back. They didn’t survive.”
She went on: “At that time, there was no smoke. I couldn’t see any fire. We didn’t call the fire brigade. We wanted to leave the flat, but when we opened the door there was about 30 to 40 people coming from downstairs to upstairs. They were knocking on our door and screaming ‘there is a fire. Help help’.
“I asked them what happened and they said ‘there is fire and it is coming very quickly up’. I told them ‘why are you going up? There is no way out.’
“There was no smoke at that point. The fire was around the building but not inside.
“The people were coming from different floors. Four people came into our flat, two of them from the 18th floor. There were also two from the 22nd floor – a mother and daughter.
“We were now seven people in the flat. The rest of them went to flat 203. I don’t know how many bodies they recovered from there.
“Every minute Sakineh [one of the women] asked my husband where is the helicopter. My husband said ‘I don’t know’.
“My husband then called someone who said ‘they are saying stay where you are and the rescue is coming now’. At that time everybody stayed where they were.
“By now, the corridor was full of smoke. The hallway was full of smoke. We went to open the windows, but when we did the air circulated and smoke poured into the flat. We couldn’t see anything in front of our eyes.
“Then I said to my husband ‘if the fire is coming inside our sitting
‘Goodbye. We are now leaving this world. Goodbye. I hope I haven’t disappointed you. Goodbye to all’
room I don’t want to burn and die. I want to jump out of the window’. My husband held me and said don’t be silly. We waited another 10 minutes maybe and then we decided it’s the time to escape.”
Saber stayed behind. “My husband was helping the women who had come into the flat,” recalled Flora. “He couldn’t leave those other four women in distress. Sakineh was also disabled; she was using a walker. She couldn’t get back down the stairs without any help. My husband stayed with them trying to help her.
“Farhad carried me on his back. We opened the front door and saw the smoke,” said Flora. She was hesitant to leave but her son persuaded her that it was their last chance. “He led me. We were coughing and vomiting. When we reached the staircase we couldn’t see anything.
“Maybe on the 18th or 19th floor we stepped over bodies. There was a person on the stairs breathing with difficulty, but we couldn’t help them. We finally got to a floor where there was no smoke. We waited on that floor and then went back into the staircase and inside the smoke. We didn’t know what floor we were on. Maybe it was the 6th floor. We carried on down.”
She is not coping with the loss of her husband. “He was a very brave, courageous man. He couldn’t leave the other women behind. In the end, he jumped out of the window. At least we had a body to bury.”
When she received his smoke-damaged clothes from police, she found a piece of his bone inside his jacket. “It was really upsetting. We had to have another burial. When I think of his pain and suffering it really hurts me. They didn’t tell us but I am sure that he saw there is no way, no chance of getting out. He didn’t have any choice and he doesn’t want to burn because at least they can find the body and bury the body, so he decided to jump. But it was too high. When I think about it, how could he manage to do that? My husband was very brave. He did it for us. Before he jumped he left a message.
“On the recording his voice is very nervous. He was scared. He left his message and after that he jumped. Nobody would have the courage to do that.”