Yvette Thom, a supervisor at the Edge Lounge in Georgetown, estimated her losses to be in excess of $10M after a fire late Monday night completely gutted her Central Amelia’s Ward home.
Thom, who was taken to the Linden Hospital Complex, was still there yesterday morning receiving treatment. She was later released into the care of her close friend at Central Amelia’s Ward, where she recounted that it was the fire that woke her from sleep. “In my sleep, I start feeling this hot heat on my back and I jump up only to see smoke all over,” she said.
The woman immediately rushed to the front of the house, where she knew she had left a lit candle. But she discovered that the area was engulfed with thick smoke and she could not see anything. At that point, she knew she had to get out. “I rushed to the back bedroom where there was a door but the smoke was so intense I struggled a while before I get out. I was so confused, I don’t even know which direction I ran in,” she added.
Thom said she called out to neighbours but no one heard her. In desperation, she ran up the road where she met a neighbour, who went to her rescue. However, much could not have been done since the house was completely engulfed by then. “He tried to break open the front door but the fire was too much,” she explained, “By then, more people start coming out and we tried throwing water and sand but the fire was too much.”
Several of Thom’s neighbours opined that if the fire service had responded promptly, it would have been able to put out the inferno before it had spread to the bedrooms. “I lost millions,” Thom said, while crying. “I had everything appliance you could possibly think of in that house… I don’t know if I could ever get back half the things I had in there.”
Thom had been working on approaching a bank for a loan to compete the exterior of the house. She also had offered lodging to a female neighbour. “Is shortly before I went to my bedroom the same night I made an arrangement with the same neighbour’s sister to stay in the house from Thursday to keep the house for me. All that I did. I never knew that today I would not have a home, no clothes on my back and no money in my purse. All my jewellery, even my salary, I had in my bag all burn up. Everything gone. I don’t know how I gon’ start again. I really need help. Please, I need help,” she wailed.