A 13-year-old autistic boy tragically died after he got hold of a lighter and set fire to the Christmas tree at his family’s North Carolina home.
Brenda Contreras Juarez, 30, has been left heartbroken following her son Brandon’s demise on Tuesday.
Myfox8 reported that a caregiver was looking after the teenager, who lived with autism, and a five-year-old girl at the time of the tragedy at 6.30 pm.
Family members said he somehow got his hands on a lighter and set their family Christmas tree ablaze, causing a fire to quickly spread through the home.
The caregiver and the little girl managed to flee the disaster, but Brandon got stuck in the flames, and despite rescue efforts from his caregiver, he perished in the blaze.
His caregiver suffered minor injuries from her efforts to save Brandon’s life, she’s now recovering in hospital.
The family lost everything in the fire, but the most devastating loss of all was Brandon, the oldest of his siblings.
His grief-stricken mother said that it had been three days of torture. That she missed him so much, and that she was dying of sadness.
Brenda’s aunt Noelia Juarez added that they had lost all the material things, but the most difficult thing was that they couldn’t recover what hurt them the most.
The home where Brenda lived alone with her three children, located on Fanning Pointe Lane, was completely destroyed by the fire.
Family members set up a GoFundMe page to collect money to help with funeral expenses, it’s raised $5,255 so far.
Noelia Juarez wrote on the page that on behalf of Family Contreras Juarez, they were making the page to whomever would like to kindly donate money in memory of Brandon Gonzalez since he lost his life in a house fire.
She said that they’d lost everything, their home, and 13-year-old Brandon’s life and that they were asking for help with the funeral costs and to build a new home.
Juarez said he always me her happy with his smile and that he was her world.
It was particularly painful for the family to lose the young boy during the Holiday season, just weeks before Brandon’s birthday.
Neighbours of the family witnessed the catastrophe and reported that the caregiver was a grandmother and it was she and her grandchild who managed to flee the fire.
This is an extremely heartbreaking story made more so because Christmas is just around the corner.
The young man wasn’t seen grabbing a lighter and a small lighter isn’t something that obvious – it’s a small item that a lot of people have in their homes and this is a very tragic misfortune.
This was truly horrible. The home was made from wood, and these kinds of homes go up extremely fast. The lady was his caregiver and was also injured in the fire, and she will now have to recover not only physically but mentally as well.
Some people have said this caregiver should have gone to jail. I grant you that perhaps a lighter should have not been in the home, but perhaps it was used to light the gas on the cooker or for another reason. However, the caregiver was not to blame. It could have happened to anyone, and as sad as this might be, sometimes some things are just out of our control.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 