The Dominion Post
INVERGARGILL, New Zealand — Firefighters pulled a toddler from a burning house in Invercargill after his family had fled the flames.
Invercargill Fire Brigade senior station officer Alan Goldsworthy said that when emergency services arrived about 8.10am yesterday, thick smoke was billowing from the house.
The adult occupants of the property had made it outside, but the 3-year-old boy was plucked from a bedroom in the burning house by firefighters after a short search, Mr Goldsworthy said.
“From when we arrived we would have had the child out well within five minutes . . . It felt like ages but it was probably only a couple of minutes or so,” he said.
The boy’s stepmother, Kelly Wilson, said he had been flown to Starship children’s hospital in Auckland for skin grafts. Flames and thick clouds of smoke had prevented other occupants from rescuing the boy, and it was devastating to see him emerge from the burning house in the arms of firefighters, she said.
“I’d like just to tell them I say thank you. If it wasn’t for them . . .”
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