Gifts from St. Mary’s staff surprise, elate fire victim
‘We got you,’ ER nurse promised mom after family lost everything.
LAKE WORTH — Tikisha Hobbs and her five children lost all of their belongings and nearly their lives Nov. 28 when their mobile home in Lantana went up in flames.
Hobbs sobbed Wednesday discussing the incident, but the tears weren’t about what her family lost, but what it has gained.
Touched by the family’s misfortune, emergency room staffers at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach teamed up and delivered thousands of dollars worth of household necessities and Christmas gifts to the new home that Hobbs, her husband, Rasheen Norman; and their children Tikarah, 13; Tamara, 9; Tatianna, 7; Tara, 6; and Kai, 3; moved into last week in Lake Worth.
Some of the same nurses who treated Hobbs and t wo of her children in the emergency room for smoke inhalation showed up Wednesday loaded down with everything from mops to microwaves to mats.
“I wasn’t expecting all of this,” said Hobbs, whose unfurnished home quickly filled up with gifts. “Just look at this.”
Among those pitching in was Chase Bilbrey, a beefy emergency room nurse at St. Mary’s tasked with moving some bulkier gifts, like a sofa, into Hobbs’ home.
It was Bilbrey who attended to a despondent Hobbs the night of the fire and assured her that he and his colleagues would take care of her “from beginning to end.” “We got you,” Bilbrey promised. Hobbs, 38, said she didn’t know what to think. How could Bilbrey and the other staffers help a large family that had lost everything except the clothes on their backs?
“I was like, ‘OK, you’re being nice, but I don’t think you understand that I have five kids,’ ” Hobbs said. “And Chase said, ‘No, we got you.’ And look.”
What has turned into a happy ending could have resulted in massive tragedy if not for Tikarah, an eighth-grader at Lantana Middle School.
It was Tikarah who was awakened by smoke Nov. 28 at about 12:30 a.m. and alerted her mother.