‘We had two minutes and then it went bang’
The fire broke out in the early hours of Saturday morning(Image: Submitted)
A disabled dad was dragged out of a burning house ‘on his bum’ as his family say they were ‘lucky to get out alive’. Chris Blissett, 60, was in bed when the blaze broke out in the living room of his home in Selsted Road, Wythenshawe, on Saturday (December 6).
His 33-year-old son, who is known as Little Chris, wrapped his dad, who weighs nearly 30 stone, in a blanket and dragged him down the stairs by his feet. According to his sister Naomi, 32, ‘everything went bang’ as the bedroom floor collapsed as soon as they got out.
She told the Manchester Evening News she was going to jump out of her bedroom window but her mum ‘begged’ her not to so she ran through black smoke down the stairs. Firefighters then rescued a dog who miraculously survived alongside Naomi’s tortoise.
Naomi said: “I was screaming for help. I was ready to jump out the window. My mum begged me not to so I came through the smoke.
“I couldn’t see a thing. I didn’t know whether I was walking into fire. We had two minutes to get in the garden and then it went bang.”
The family were taken to hospital where ‘Little Chris’ was kept in critical care under observation for 48 hours. The father-of-two was almost placed in a coma, Naomi says, but he ‘managed to fight through’ and was discharged from hospital on Monday (December 8).
According to Naomi, who has two children herself, the smoke alarms did not go off when the fire broke out in the living room at around 1.05am. Instead, it was an alarm on her father’s ‘through lift’ between the living room and bedroom which alerted them to it.
“The fire alarm wasn’t working in the house,” she said. “If it wasn’t for my dad’s through lift, we wouldn’t be alive.”
Naomi’s parents and brother have been put up in a nearby hotel following the fire which destroyed their home. However, Naomi and her two children, who recently moved into the home temporarily, were sent to a hotel in Rusholme on Tuesday (December 9).
She has set up an online fundraiser on GoFundMe in the hope of raising some money to ‘try rebuild and cope living in hotels’. On the fundraising page, she thanked firefighters, the police and the ambulance service as well as the ‘wonderful neighbours’ who helped. Donate here.
She wrote: “We are taking things day by day. Thank you to everyone for your ongoing thoughts and kindness.”
Speaking to the M.E.N., she added: “I’m not sleeping. Every time I do I wake up scaring myself thinking it’s going to happen again.”