Help Families With Emergency Assistance
May 3, 2010
If she had waited five minutes, Hazel would have been dead. If she had been sleeping, as she often did in her wheelchair in the living room, she could easily have inhaled the poisonous gas and fallen into an even deeper sleep, a death caused by the fumes already enveloping the room. Most victims of house fires die from asphyxiation, not in the flames.
Thank God, Hazel was not asleep. Her lights flickered and she smelled the smoke. Then she looked up when she heard popping sounds coming from the roof. Immediately, she started hollering, overwhelmed with the fear that her disabled son, Billy, who was in his second floor bedroom, would not be able to get out of the house in time. Billy had been working at the local food pantry for 15 years until his severe, joint inflammation worsened and he became bedridden. Did he hear her cries to get out? Did he escape?
Mothers know those moments of terror when fear grips them about the safety of their children. Still screaming, the elderly woman wheeled herself to the front porch. Black smoke poured out around her as two neighborhood boys came to her rescue and carried her off the porch.
It takes two minutes for fire to become life threatening and five minutes for an entire residence to be engulfed in flames. Billy had struggled to his feet and hobbled on his crutches down the stairs. He couldn’t see his mother in the smoke but he made it out the back door. Mother and son spent many terrified minutes fearing the worst until they were reunited.
Hazel lost her home of 50 years, the home she had struggled and saved for years to pay off the mortgage. It was an old, dried up house in a densely packed neighborhood but she was proud to be a homeowner. Suffering from diabetes and neuropathy, Hazel had barely been able to cover her day-to-day living expenses. There was no way she could afford fix-up expenses like upgrading her house’s old electrical wiring.
To make matters much worse, Hazel had lost her homeowner’s insurance three months before the fire because she needed to keep the water and electricity turned on through the winter. Her utility bills are still behind because she could only afford to pay partial payments.
When I visited with Hazel and her eyes filled with tears I felt an ache in my heart. Every day I see the endless struggles of elders, families and the working poor, who face one insurmountable tragedy after another.
Outreach worker Ethel Kinnerson saw the smoke from half a mile away and responded immediately. She sat with Hazel, watching the shocking sight of a home turned into a burned pile of debris and twisted metal, charred beyond recognition. Later, Ethel helped Hazel with emergency clothing and shelter at a local motel. As she grieved, Hazel was most upset about the loss of family photos of her parents and grandparents on the living room mantel.
Hazel is presently living with her daughter and her three children in a tiny, overcrowded house where she sleeps on the couch. Billy is staying with a cousin. With help from our outreach workers, Hazel has found an affordable, unfurnished apartment. The Edmundite Missions will help her to purchase essential furniture including a stove and refrigerator.
Fires plague the poor here. As I drive the streets and see the blackened remains of homes, each one telling a personal story of loss and despair, I turn to the Lord, praying for the safety of struggling families like Hazel’s, whose anguish is so much worse because of their deep poverty.
I pray that we will be able to continue providing 220 hot meals a day at Bosco, in addition to the emergency help we give to fire-stricken families throughout the missions. Each time we respond to a burn out, it takes $402 to provide food and safe shelter for each family during the first few days. Please help me take care of Hazel and her son as well as 21 other families who have had their lives turned upside down by disaster and fire in just the past six months.
Daily I pray for you, asking our Father to strengthen you with His priceless, unfailing love. (Psalm 36:7)
In His Service,
Rev. Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
