‘It was like a nightmare’
For volunteer firefighter Randy Gover, watching his home in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland, being destroyed by flames was a terror laced with bitter irony. Smoke from the fire, that is believed to have been started by a plug-in heater at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, quickly filled the home where he and his wife were sleeping. Awoken by the fire alarm, they made their way to the second-floor window. Grover, who says he’s learned over the years that a few broken bones is better than succumbing to the flames, hopped out the window, scaled down a portion of the wall and jumped to the ground. But his wife was too afraid to follow. As he told CBC, “It was scary watching her with all the smoke going around her … It was like a nightmare—that my wife was up there, and there was nothing I could do to get her down.” Thankfully, the ordeal only lasted a few minutes; she was rescued by attending firefighters and treated in hospital for smoke inhalation.