Friends and family of a four-year-old boy who died in a house fire are rallying around to raise money for his funeral.
Their GoFundMe page tells how the boy’s grandfather searched the Ann Street house in vain before he was driven out by smoke from the blaze.
Firefighters later found the boy’s body in his mother’s bedroom.
Emergency services were called to the townhouse just before 8am on Saturday 1 October.
An Ambulance Victoria spokesman said paramedics took five people to Dandenong Hospital in a stable condition, four with smoke inhalation and one with a leg injury.
They took a toddler suffering from burns to the Royal Children’s Hospital in a stable condition.
The house was extensively damaged. Investigators deemed the fire non-suspicious and are preparing a report for the Coroner.
The GoFundMe page, titled Boy (4) Dies in a Tragic House Fire, is aiming to raise $8000 and attracted more than 100 donations topping $5300 in three days.
The page said an electrical fault started the fire.
“A young mother of two wakes up at 8am to hear her youngest son, aged one, screaming, burnt and in tears,” it said.
“She picks her son up and gets him out of the room while her brother rushes to take him downstairs.
“Everyone in the house is woken up and accounted for except her oldest son.
“Everyone is searching for him in the house and screaming out his name, but there was no answer.”
“The grandfather of the boys rushed in to look for him under the bed and everywhere else but was losing air himself because of so much smoke.”
The page said the fire started in the mother’s bedroom, and that was where the boy was found hiding next to the window when fire fighters and ambulance crews arrived.
“It was too late, (he) had already passed away.”
Visit https://www.gofundme.com/2s7376k to donate.
