Mum collapses with toddler while escaping fire engulfing her home
A Queensland mum has recalled the horrifying moment she collapsed with her two-year-old in her arms as fire quickly engulfed her home this week.
Alicia Busk had been at home with her toddler Indigo at lunch time on Tuesday when a fire broke out inside.
Ms Busk had been doing housework at the property in the southeast Queensland suburb of Bray Park and was grateful she became aware of the blaze quickly and was able to pick up her youngest girl and flee.
“As soon I realised that the smoke wasn’t just smoke, that there were actual flames, I literally grabbed her and ran out the front door,” Ms Busk told Yahoo7.
“We got really lucky to get out,” she added.
Ms Busk had been renting and living in the property with her two daughters for nearly three years. Her eldest Kahlia had not been home at the time.
The mum of two said it was devastating to be standing out the front of her home and watching as the fire took hold, adding that she collapsed with Indigo in her arms.
“I guess it’s like when anything really bad happens you don’t expect those things to happen to you,” she said.
The fire is not being treated as suspicious and it is thought it broke out in a bedroom at the front of the property.
Indigo was only a week old when they moved into the house and the mother said her youngest child is “very out of sorts”.
“My 11 year old and 2 year old daughter have lost their clothes, their toys, their Christmas presents. We’ve lost all our white goods, tvs, phones, iPads,” Ms Busk wrote online.
“I have lost all my clothes, makeup, shoes, bedding, linen.. We have to start rebuilding our lives one day at a time.”
The fire didn’t reach all the rooms, but the mum said all the rooms did sustain either fire or smoke damage.
She said while they managed to salvage some items with slight smoke damage, about 90 per cent of what they own is destroyed.
Ms Busk said she has been bombarded with donations already.
“It’s amazing how beautiful people are,” she said.
“I don’t like to ask for help, but I have to ask for help I can’t do this alone.”
A gofundme page has been set up by a friend of Ms Busk’s who added, “We aren’t necessarily looking for money but towels, linen, clothes for an 11 year old girl, 3 year old girl, toys for both ages and other similar things.”
