18-year-old Melissa Henckel was the last person to make it out of the Claymore avenue house during the blaze Saturday morning. Melissa says she tried desperately to help save 21-year-old Jasmine Marie Gregory. “I heard Jasmine toppled down the stairs. She landed on my legs….Kept trying to pull her up. I couldn't catch my breath. I just ran out of the house,” says Henckel.
Melissa's nightmare didn't end there. Once she was outside she saw 23-year-old Charmaine Collins calling for help from her upstairs window. “ I saw Charmaine screaming, arms flailing… I told her jump… and then her arms just collapsed in the window, “says Henckel.
Charmaine had moved to Ottawa for a fresh start She had a fledgling photography business. She attended 3 semesters of a photojournalism course at Loyalist college in Belleville. Professor Frank O’Connor says “ (she was) a nice quiet kid. The tragedy is it's a life unlived. and we will never know how she would have developed that eye of hers.”
Melissa Henckel says another survivor smelled smoke in the basement but thought it was just a cigarette. “There were smoke detectors and apparently they went off. Apparently soemone tried to turn the detector off. They thought it was just someone having a cigarette in the house or something, “ says Henckel.
None of the survivors had insurance. There's an effort underway on Facebook to raise money, clothes and furniture for the survivors. Visit "Shahreen, Sabby's and Melissa's Donation Box!"
