The parents of a three-month-old baby who survived a house fire earlier this week after being thrown from a third story window have brought her home from hospital.
Derek Healy (26), who was forced to throw his daughter Mila to neighbour Mark Furlong on Tuesday as their house became engulfed in flames, told The Irish Times he was overcome with gratitude they had all survived.
“Mila is grand. It’s brilliant; I just couldn’t wait to get her home. She was just in [hospital]because she took in a bit of smoke on the morning and she was under surveillance,” he said from his mother’s home in Dublin city where he is staying with Mila and his partner Charlene Murphy . Ms Murphy is recovering from a broken pelvis sustained in her own escape.
Mr Healy said they believe the fire may have been started by a boiler unit under the stairs as this was roughly where it started.
The plan now is for everyone to recover and then Ms Murphy will begin to look for a new home.
The blaze destroyed their three storey house on Gloucester Place off Sean MacDermott Street in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Six people in total were hospitalised after jumping to safety from the windows.
Lola (3) and Gary (17), Charlene’s siblings, were both taken in for smoke inhalation but have made a full recovery. Mr Healy was able to climb down to safety with the help of a sloping roof.
“I’m ok. I haven’t slept at night since it happened but I will try and get there. I am more worried about the kids,” he said.
“You can’t really block it out. Every time you have a spare moment, that’s when you think about it. When you are lying in bed you are thinking: ‘what if this, what if that’.”
He held Mila out the window in a bid to protect her lungs from the smoke that was rapidly increasing inside. His shouts for help were eventually met by two neighbours. One, Mark Furlong, jumped into the garden and miraculously caught the child.
“I just couldn’t thank him enough. What he done was life saving. Only for him I don’t know what position we would be in.
“You can replace everything else. There was a lot of stuff in the house but it can be replaced,” he said.
