Dangers of smoking

I haven't had time to sit down and type up what happened yet. On the 29th of August I was sitting at my desk working on a set of articles for a client when a neighbor opened my back door. This in itself was odd since I didn't know this neighbor but her words would not only shake up my day, they saved my family's lives!

She said to me, "There is a fire in the apartment next door and you should get out."

She didn't seem concerned and since the girl next door is quite young I invisioned a grease fire on the stove and a young girl panicking. Within seconds I had told my 11 year old to wake the kids upstairs (of course we were babysitting and not only had my other 3 children upstairs but the neighbor's 2 were up there as well) and all of the sudden this calm neighbor started yelling at me to get out of my house right away.

Still, I didn't smell the smoke and had no idea what danger we were in. I got out of my chair and went upstairs to get the cleeping children. Immediately I knew something was wrong. My smoke detectors weren't going off but the smoke was fililng the upstairs of my apartment and breathing was painful causing a burning feeling in my nose and throat.

I hate to cut a story short, but I'll revisit this story again in a couple days when I have time to put it to words. Let it suffice to say at this point that we made it out and only have holes in our walls from the firemen's axe used to get to the burning insulation in our walls. The neighbor's house only had a couple pit bulls in it along with a smouldering cigarette in the sofa. The people hadn't been home in over 2 hours. She lost everything! The dogs made it out with minor injuries.

Now my 3 year old is terrified of fire and even terrified of policemen and firemen because he soedn't want to have another fire.

I'll write more about the reprecussions of a fire in blogs to come.