A Donegal couple who escaped their burning home in their bare feet has described their A&E experience as a nightmare.
Hazel and Charles Clarke, aged in their late 70s, lost their Culdaff home and all their possessions in a fire on Friday 10th February.
They were in bed sleeping when, at 4am, their smoke alarm went off. The flames were already taking hold and they ran outside. However, Charles attempted to rescue his beloved dog, Lucy, and he suffered serious burns. Sadly, little Lucy didn’t make it out of the blaze.
After the traumatic fire, Hazel said the extra tragedy she experienced was waiting 24 hours in the Letterkenny Emergency Department, covered in soot and pleading for help for her husband.
“We were lying on two trolleys, our hair was singed black and our bodies were covered in pieces of plastic from the fire,” Hazel told Donegal Daily.
“My husband just lay there, hour after hour, in pain and blistering.
“I was trying to tell the doctors that my husband was burned but they didn’t understand. I had to get off my trolley and show them. It was a nightmare and one of the worst things about that night.
“I trained to deal with burns as a nurse. If he had been treated sooner, the damage would have been much less.”
Charles, who is also going through treatment for lung cancer, was eventually sent to Galway University Hospital.
“Sending a sick man four and a half hours down the road, after lying on a trolley all day, in my opinion, amounts to cruelty. You can imagine how traumatised he was lying in that ambulance,” Hazel said.
Hazel escaped the house fire without injury, but was brought to the emergency department for a chest x-ray. She had run down the road in her nightclothes to her brother’s house for help when it’s believed that Charles tried to save his dog. He was found with a watering can in his hand.
It took just minutes for their bungalow to be overcome with flames, Hazel said. They built the home in Redford 47 years ago and raised their family there. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
“All our life’s treasures, our phones, our laptop, everything is gone,” Hazel said.
Charles and Hazel’s home was completely destroyed in the fire
Hazel, who is an author, lost the draft of a book she was writing.
“In between looking after my husband, I was writing a memoir dedicated to my niece’s boys. It was 75% written. I put my heart and soul into writing that book of memories of growing up in rural Donegal. It was to be my last book.”
“We are heartbroken. I’m heartbroken for our home and I’m worried sick for Charles. I wish I was burned instead of him,” she said.
Charles is having specialist skin graft surgery this week in Galway. Hazel said the emergency highlighted to her how shameful it is that burns services are not amalgamated cross-border.
“The awful sad thing is that there is a very good burns unit at Altnagelvin Hospital, just 20 minutes from our house, but he was sent four and a half hours down the road.
“If both governments make the burns unit bigger and more available, what a difference that would have made.
“It’s a disgrace, only when you are in this situation do you realise how terrible it is.”
Hazel said that her hospital experience was ‘dire’ but the people of Inishowen were amazing.
“I want to thank the people who rallied around to help us, they did a fundraiser and that is what has kept me going.”
Hazel has also urged people to get smoke alarms and ensure they are working.
“Other than the alarm and the dog barking, we wouldn’t have got out. It was a windy night and we only had minutes.”
Hazel is currently living with her son, Stuart, but they are urgently seeking somewhere to rent for the next 12 months. The home must be adapted for Charles’ mobility issues.
“We are homeless,” Hazel said. “I would ask Donegal County Council to please don’t make the planning permission process difficult for us to rebuild. We haven’t got the time, we are too old.”
Stuart has made a local appeal to the Culdaff community for help finding a temporary home for Hazel and Charles as they face their long road to recovery.
If anyone can help, please email: stupot48@yahoo.co.uk
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