Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

When fire broke out in his Rousil­lac home, 22-year-old Keron Nehru ran back in­to the build­ing in a des­per­ate at­tempt to save the fam­i­ly home on Mon­day.

As he dis­ap­peared in­to the smoke and flames, his 11-year-old broth­er could be heard scream­ing, “Broth­er, broth­er.”

For­tu­nate­ly, Nehru made it out safe­ly with on­ly mi­nor burns, and no one else was in­jured. The broth­ers were down­stairs in the home with their moth­er, Sarah, when the fire broke out around 10.15 am. Their fa­ther was not at home.

The fam­i­ly op­er­ates three busi­ness­es—a glass busi­ness, a bar­ber sa­lon and a min­i­mart and veg­etable stall—on the ground floor of their home.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Nehru said a neigh­bour alert­ed him that smoke was com­ing from his home.

“When I went up to check, I saw my mom’s bed on fire.”

He said he grabbed the hose and ran back up­stairs to try to quell the flames.

“By the time I was up there, the fire got big­ger and big­ger,” he said, re­call­ing that his broth­er be­gan scream­ing for him.

When the fire­fight­ers ar­rived, he said he stayed with them for about two hours as they quelled the flames, guid­ing them through the lay­out of the house and en­sur­ing that the flames did not spread to the en­tire house.

Not­ing that he shared a close bond with his broth­er, he said his broth­er was wor­ried for his safe­ty, and the in­ci­dent has left them all trau­ma­tised.

He said they lost every­thing, from their per­son­al doc­u­ments and be­long­ings to house­hold ar­ti­cles.

“Every­thing gone ... from bed straight down to ash­es in the ground. All the walls cracked up, the foun­da­tion, every­thing cracked up, every­thing gone.”

De­spite the tragedy, they still opened their busi­ness­es yes­ter­day.

“We lost jew­ellery, we lost mon­ey, we lost ba­si­cal­ly every­thing. We have to start back over from fresh from the be­gin­ning, like a new­born ba­by. Every­thing, you know, it’s hard now. And the place is get­ting worse. This coun­try is not get­ting bet­ter. Every­thing is get­ting more hard­er in life now. You can’t move for­ward. You just have to get up and try and make the best out of every­thing.”

He ex­plained that since the high­way was ex­tend­ed to Point Fortin, sales have re­duced sig­nif­i­cant­ly. “Is a strug­gle right now. But we’re try­ing to go for­ward.”

He said his broth­er, who would be sit­ting the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment next year, lost all his school sup­plies.

The fam­i­ly said short­ly be­fore the fire, sparks were seen on the elec­tric­i­ty wire lead­ing to their home. How­ev­er, fire of­fi­cials are yet to de­ter­mine the cause of the blaze.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact them at 399-2594.