I escaped horror house fire that killed my two kids – trolls said I should have saved them… but I couldn't breathe

Scottish Sun

4 days ago

The mother only narrowly escaped sustaining serious injuries
'MOTHER'S NIGHTMARE' I escaped horror house fire that killed my two kids – trolls said I should have saved them… but I couldn't breathe
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
A MUM who escaped a house fire which killed her two children says vicious trolls tell her she should have saved them.
Jade Horton desperately tried to rescue her two children, Issac and Sienna Jenkins, aged three and seven, in the horror blaze at their family home five years ago.
Sign up for Scottish Sun
newsletter
Sign up
4
Jade Horton's two children, Issac and Sienna Jenkins, aged three and seven, died in a house fire at their family home
Credit: FACEBOOK/JADE HORTON
4
The fire broke out in the early hours of the morning in December 2020
Credit: BPM
4
Jade survived the blaze but suffered serious injuries after jumping out a second floor window
Credit: FACEBOOK/JADE HORTON
A fire broke out in the early hours at the townhouse in St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, in December 2020.
Jade was woken to the terrible sound of her daughter screaming in her bedroom.
Upon opening her door, Jade was quickly overpowered by the smoke and heat emitting from the floor below.
The neighbours had already phoned the fire brigade from the family's back garden as Jade rushed to her bedroom window to scream for help.
She was also trying frantically to get in touch with her partner Andy who had already left for work.
Racing back from work, Andy tried to make it into the house with two other neighbours but the blaze was too strong for them to reach Jade and the kids upstairs.
Firefighters reached the house within minutes but couldn't enter the property as the fire had advanced so quickly.
Jade had previously told an inquest into the tragedy: "I heard Sienna calling for me. I tried to open her door but couldn't. There was smoke coming from Sienna's bedroom.
"I couldn't get downstairs. The heat was so intense.
"I went to my bedroom window and shouted as loud as I could 'Help, help."
At least one dead as wildfires spread across Europe with Mount Vesuvius closed in Italy & French vineyards turned to ash
After she could no longer hear Sienna, Jade thought her children had been saved.
She says that if she knew her children were still in the house she would have "died with them".
Jade escaped by jumping from her window and sustained traumatic injuries leaving her body broken.
Screaming for her children, covered in glass and blood, her neighbours avoided her gaze as her partner said "they're gone".
"I remember hearing this guttural, animal-like scream that must have come from me – but it was like I wasn't in my own body," she told The Mail.
Jade broke both her heel bones, ankles, pelvis, her sternum, right wrist, three fingers and all ten toes from the jump.
Her spine was also broken in four places and shattered her right-hip socket - her chances of survival were slim.
After numerous surgeries, Jade was told she would be left permanently paralysed.
When the tragic story hit the news, she was subject to a barrage of abuse and vicious online trolling accusing her of abandoning her children to save herself.
She said every article she read on what happened was accompanied by comments saying she had "left her children to die".
"I thought I couldn't be in any more pain, but that hurt the most," she said.
Even Jade began to doubt herself and questioned whether she could have done more.
But an official inquest later revealed she couldn't have done anything else to save Issac and Sienna.
The inquest also heard how the blaze reached around 1000C and the house's fire alarms didn't work with a "perfect storm" of conditions drawing the fire and smoke upwards.
It also ruled that TV electrics in Issac's bedroom likely caused the blaze - Jade was paid a settlement by the manufacturer last year.
Speaking five years later, Jade smiles at her final memories of her children.
She sang Issac his favourite nursery rhymes and read Sienna her favourite story that night as she tucked them into bed.
"I'm glad I cuddled them and kissed them before watching them both fall asleep happy that night," she said.
Jade was treated in hospital for months but still managed to walk again despite doctors saying it wasn't possible.
But mentally she was broken, haunted by flashbacks and suicidal thoughts.
Since then, Jade turned to alternative therapies and has retrained as a spiritual healer finding peace in helping others.
She has moved house and even won a Woman of Courage award for building a holistic business in the face of adversity.
When she went on stage to collect her award, she said she could hear Issac and Sienna cheering "louder than anyone else".