February 14th, valentines’ day, do you know I’m not even sure of the year but I think it was 2009? We (myself, partner and 2 little girls (1 girl now age 10 and the others now 5) were away in our precious motorhome not specifically for valentines’ day but that was the 1st night of our planned trip. We arrived as planned no problems as always as we are always very well prepped for things, got to the caravan site and put our post up; we had to reserve our pitch before going food shopping. We went food shopping, sorting out what we were going to have for our valentines evening 3 course meals.
We returned to the camp site, did the kids tea, then they went to play at the park (as it was outside our pitch) while we prepped and ate our dinner. We had finished and had planned to just relax near the motorhome, watch a film or play games together.
Our little girl came running up to the van shouting, or rather demanding we go out, we asked what she meant and she said “to the clubhouse sillies”. We chuckled to ourselves, looked at each other but said no sorry and explained we had planned a relaxing evening. We tried to make her agree as you do, but she was distraught. We asked her why it was so important and she just said “coz she wanted to dance”. So we said for her to wait and we would get changed, she said no and begged so we said ok we would just go. I tied the dog up to stop her climbing through to the cab, as we had done 100 times before and stroked her and kissed her as always. Jess was a beautifully natured German shepherd.
We locked up and went to the club house, but when we got there was no music, nothing, it was shut for the night but we stayed and asked the barman to put on a cd and our little girl was happy enough dancing round the games room to it. We had a game of pool while the youngest, only 2 at the time napped in his push chair. After some time, I’m not sure exactly how long but about 10/20 minutes we saw blue flashing lights.
Quite a few come past the club and we commented as we saw an ambulance and police but no fire engines that we hoped everyone was ok. After another 10 minutes a man came in or rather burst in out of breath saying do you guys have a motorhome up near the park.
We looked at each other and said that we did, he says can one of you at least come with me please…do NOT bring the children so my partner stayed with them in the club and I followed…well, ran at speed after him up the hill. Exhausted (I have asthma and exercise induced asthma). As we got closer I could see the smoke and the fire engine and all the cars…police etc, I saw the flames and ran faster still up the hill, as I did I realised it was our motorhome.
I just stopped staring at it then realisation kicked in….the dog!!!!!! I am now crying writing this…I ran full pelt at the blazing van and got flung to the floor by 2 police officers, I broke free then tried again to only just be stopped by 3 fire men from getting to my dog….they dragged me away, I collapsed in a heap at the park fence where just about half an hour ago everything was perfect.
I couldn’t breathe, I was just in floods of tears, screaming then I realised again…oh my god, the kids and my partner.
I started to run down the hill but was stopped by the paramedics who ordered me in their ambulance; I was clearly having both an asthma and panic attack. I refused so the police said they would take me to them in her car, as I approached I was pulling at the doors to get out but obviously couldn’t it was a police car. I burst into the clubhouse and just collapsed in my husband’s arms onto the floor, he couldn’t make sense of me so the police told him and the youngest was still asleep, where was the eldest? She had heard me and ran away, luckily not far and the firemen found her crouching in a corner in the club shaking.
Then I went into Mum mode, calmed down and just dealt with it all! I went into autopilot thank god. Spoke to our little girl who didn’t really know what going on at the time and to my partner. After a while me and the partner agreed to go up there together to see it as he just thought it was like burnt a bit or something.
The police watched the kids and we walked hand in hand up that god damned hill. It had been put out and all that was left was the chassis, the fireman said it was an electrical fault near the door area that had spread to the diesel tank via pipes etc. under the van and it just blew.
There were a few bits lying around, a favorite teddy, clothes, allsorts just burnt barely recognisable.
People in other vans started to come over apologising trying to help, they said to start with they thought we had a BBQ in the awning and also that we were in it at the time as no one saw us leave. Then one said they had seen us leave and we had been gone about 2 minutes when it started and that it spread so fast.
A few had known we had a dog and heard it barking and tried to rescue it.
Then, hang on what were we going to do in Cumbria, we live in Nottinghamshire, the site owners said we could borrow one of their vans for as long as was needed and also help ourselves in the shop at no cost, they were SO helpful, things could have been much worse on so many levels.
The police said we could go as there was nothing we could do or needed to do. We rang the in-laws and they fetched us all the way from Nottinghamshire, we got home at silly o’clock, motorhomeless, dogless, no keys for house or car as they were in the van, my kids favorite toys gone but we were alive.
We spent the next few days and weeks sorting with insurances, replacing toys and clothes. We had supposed to have been away for 10 days so you can imagine what stuff we took and how much for a family of 4 including 2 young kids. I’m just so grateful and thankful, we may have lost the dog that is still hard but we have each other. My little girls’ love of dancing saved our lives.
Our motorhome didn’t have a smoke alarm as they didn’t have to have them then and we just never thought we would need one. I now have panic attacks when near motorhomes and as regards to fires, they scare me too.
The fireman said even if we did have an alarm though, we could have been dead if in it and we hadn’t noticed or been asleep. We now have a caravan but it took me all this time to be able to and to find a one that looked nothing inside like the motorhome, we had a tent for a while and even that had a fire alarm, blanket and extinguisher as now does the caravan.
This inspirational post was written anonymously by a mom who is a member of my Facebook mums group. I have full permission to share her story. If you can relate to this post and would like to share your own anonymous post please contact me.
You can read many more Inspirational Stories of hope and courage on the blog.
You could help us share the blogs love to helping others by sharing via the social sharing buttons bellow.
