Tear shed for baby he couldn’t save

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This article was published 18/01/2011 (5396 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. THERESA POINT — Band constable Timothy Mason is a hero for pulling a 16-month-old child out of a house engulfed in flames here on Sunday.

But Mason himself doesn’t think he’s a hero. Instead, Mason can only think that all he needed was a few seconds more to save a two-month-old baby who was also in the house.

"Ten seconds, that’s all I would have needed," he said on Monday as he surveyed the charred and gutted remains of a bungalow with brown siding on this reserve located 470 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

"I went in through the window and landed on my shoulder. I crawled along the floor until I touched a bed. There was a baby sitting on the bed crying.

"I picked the baby up and held her by the window and somebody grabbed her. I heard another cry, but with all the smoke I was already out of breath… then somebody threw me out."

Mason said two people showed up with chainsaws, but by the time they opened a large hole through the exterior wall into the bedroom, pulled out a mattress, and then yanked out a blanket with the baby on it, it was too late. The baby was rushed to the nearby nursing station where she was pronounced dead.

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"Ten seconds. Ten more seconds. That’s all I would have needed," he said again as a tear rolled down his face. A day after a fire tore through a house in this northern community, residents here were in mourning for the two-month-old baby who died inside.

Community members said the fire broke out on Sunday at about 12:30 p.m., just after the grandmother of the children ran next door to check on her parents.

Island Lake RCMP said six children aged 13 years to two months were in the home, but while the four oldest ones were able to get out when the fire broke out, two girls aged 16 months and two months old were left behind.

The house is just across the street from the centre of the community where the band office and other services are located. It was also directly across the road from the back of the community’s Northern Store.

Little remained of the house except charred walls. Most of the roof was open to the sky and the interior walls were gone. Dogs ran back and forth underneath the yellow tape that prevented people from getting close to the scene of the tragedy.

A mattress was lying in the snow outside the house. A red fire extinguisher lay on top of a refrigerator just outside a large hole in the wall where the baby was taken out of the house.

Late Monday afternoon, the Office of the Fire Commissioner announced the blaze was sparked in a chimney, which spread through the attic and then to the rest of the house.

There is no damage estimate.

Mason, who said the side of his face and some fingers were burned in the blaze, as well as having part of the hair on top of his head singed, said he had heard the older girl’s name was Qualan Harper while the baby’s middle name was Angel.

He said he went into the house after the childrens’ grandmother came running up screaming "there’s babies inside."

When a reporter went to the house where the grandmother had gone, a woman with a stunned expression came to the door and didn’t say anything.

Another family member came to the door and said they are not commenting about the fire.

Febus Wood, a neighbour, said area residents were busy throwing snow through the hole in the wall before the baby was taken out and before the community’s fire truck could arrive.

"I was standing there when the baby came out," Wood said.

"She was burned a little bit here," he said, motioning towards the side of the top of his head.

"The baby’s eyes were closed like you were sleeping."

Wood said the child’s death has shaken the entire community.

"Some people can’t sleep," he said. "I keep seeing the baby’s face. I kept seeing that image."

Jack Wood, the band’s administrator to the chief and council, said the fire truck arrived at the scene, but it took about 15 minutes to get there.

"It was started up," he said. "Then you have to be careful on the road. You can go 40 kilometres per hour and that’s fast."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Innocent lives lost

Some children who died in fires on Manitoba First Nations in the last five years:

 

— May 2010: Curtis Laporte, 2, Long Plain

— January 2010: Edward Redhead, 11, Shamattawa

— May 2009: Tristan Taylor Morrisseau, 5, Sandy Bay

— February 2009: Hope Richard, 9, Sandy Bay

October 2008:Gerrod Head, 7, Ethan Flett, 6, Opaskwayak Cree Nation

— March 2008: Letrel Bighetty-Castel, 5, Robert Castel-Lapensee Jr., 4, and Troi Castel-Lapensee, 3, Pukatawagan

— October 2006: Jody Pacey Karl Tssessaze, 4, Northlands First Nation