17 hours ago
Grenfell survivor still haunted after 'stepping on bodies on the way down'
Luana was just 12 when the fire broke out, now aged 20 she remembers her family's lucky escape in a new documentary and admits she feels guilty for the 72 who didn't make it
Grenfell survivor Luana Gomes, whose brother Logan was the youngest victim of the 2017 fire after being stillborn, was a 'very bubbly' 12-year-old when the disaster struck. Now 20, she says she is still haunted by what happened and the lives that were lost.
Speaking tearfully in the upcoming Netflix film Grenfell: Uncovered she admits: 'You feel guilty in a way. I feel guilty that I'm here living, doing my life, and they're not.'
Luana had grown up in the council tower block, in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and never felt it needed a makeover in the form of aluminium cladding, which turned out to contain a lethal polyethylene - or plastic - core. 'I always think to myself, why did this have to happen? I felt safe in that concrete tower. I would think that they would put safety ahead of prettiness.'
Recalling how she escaped from the 21st floor along with her father Marcio, pregnant mother Andreia and 10-year-old sister Megan, she said: "I just remember stepping on so many bodies to a point where I couldn't hear my dad any more behind me.'
Having fallen unconscious on the way down Luana was rescued and taken to hospital where she was placed in an induced coma along with her mother and sister, suffering from cyanide fume poisoning. Andreia was seven months pregnant with unborn Logan, who was stillborn as a result of the fire.
In the documentary, which launches on Friday, new evidence is unearthed which suggests the president of the US company that made the cladding knew it was dangerous two years before the fire that claimed 72 lives.
Arconic executive Diana Perreiah was warned by French colleagues - who sold the product to the UK - that the type of flammable cladding chosen for cost-cutting reasons on Grenfell was not suitable over 12 metres and caused excess smoke and 'flaming droplets'.
In 2015 Perreiah had asked for details of cladding types and their burn times during negotiations for the Grenfell contract but failed to stop the deal, despite the clear warning. This new information comes after the public inquiry found that Arconic had "deliberately and dishonestly" concealed 2005 test data that showed its cladding burnt in "an extremely dangerous way" and had issued safety statements which "it knew to be false'.
Arconic's statement issued to the Netflix film-makers, Rogan Productions, is that the product was 'safe to use as a building material and permissible to sell in the UK'. It also insisted that Arconic's French subsidiary AAP 'did not conceal information from or mislead any certification body, customers or the public'.
Grenfell Tower was 67 metres tall. Its 129 homes were covered in PE cladding towards the end of 2015 with the panels later found to be the main cause for the rapid spread of the fire that killed 72 people, including 18 children, on June 14, 2017.
The documentary highlights that using the fire retardant version of the panels would have cost around £2 per square metre more, which works out at around £40 per flat, or £5,000.
Grenfell survivor Eddie Daffarn, told The Sunday Times: "It is bad enough to know that they knew about the danger this product posed to tall buildings, but to learn that they specifically knew it was sold for use on Grenfell Tower and did nothing to stop it just proves what a callous and uncaring company they are, and how they simply put profit above human lives."
