Posted on 03/16/2006 5:36:30 AM PST by FerdieMurphy
A toppled candle destroyed the home and belongings of an out-of-work nurse and her 10 children
During the late-afternoon confusion, a candle flame grew Monday into a potentially deadly blaze in the home where Kerren Laitaille had been raising her 10 children.
In a matter of minutes, the fire destroyed family pictures, most of their clothes, beds, just about everything they owned. Everything, that is, except their faith.
“It’s shown me I’m blessed with my kids and shown me people do care and are there for you,” Laitaille said Wednesday morning in her all-too-temporary home: a room at Hawthorn Suites in North Naples.
After the fire, the Collier County Red Cross set her up in the plush hotel room for three days, and the hotel offered an additional day at its own expense. That gave Laitaille, a 34-year-old out-of-work nurse and single mother, until 11 a.m. Friday to find a new place.
She doesn’t know what she will do when check-out time arrives. Her old home, which she rented, is no longer inhabitable.
In the meantime, her children, who range in age from 5 months to 15 years, have been watching television and playing video games to pass the time. Those who are old enough to go to school can’t because they don’t have a change of clothes.
For her part, Laitaille has been living in a controlled state of anxiety. Reading the Bible, she said, has kept doubt from consuming her the way the fire raged through her Golden Gate house.
Like most fires, this one started small.
Someone, perhaps one of the younger children, accidentally upended a candle in the master bathroom. The flame must have landed on or near a clothes basket because it spread quickly, said Victor Hill, a spokesman with the Golden Gate fire department.
A pungent odor filled the house at 5280 20th Place S.W. When Laitaille opened her bedroom door to see what was the matter, she encountered a wall of flames. She hollered for everyone to get out.
One of her sons, 13-year-old Derrick St. Claire, guided the others to safety, displaying remarkable calm.
“First, I had to get the small ones out,” the boy recalled Wednesday. “Then, I had to get the girls out, and then the rest of the boys out. Then we had to dial 911. We had everyone out of the house and safe.”
Golden Gate firefighters received the call at 5:55 p.m. and arrived at the house three minutes later, Hill said. Smoke poured from the eaves of the roof, making the house resemble a pot of boiling water with the lid still on top. The fire would go on to cause $50,000 in damage, Hill added.
Within 10 minutes, the fire was under control, but Laitaille’s life was spinning in the other direction.
A neighbor she had never spoken to before would turn out to be what Laitaille later called a “guardian angel.” The woman, a single mother of five children herself, tried to calm a disconsolate Laitaille and urged her not to re-enter the burning home.
Barbara Bekich, 38, stayed with the family for three hours in front of their ruined home as firefighters finished putting out the fire and concluded their investigation. She raided her children’s closets to give the family clothes and brought them diapers, Pop Tarts, water and Cheezits.
“Really,” Bekich said of Laitaille, “she needed a hand held.”
More help came when the Red Cross gave the family a $400 debit card to help replace clothes and other items lost to the fire. Laitaille said Wednesday she hadn’t used the card yet because she thought it hadn’t been activated.
But Jerry Welty, emergency services director for the Collier Red Cross, said it was ready to use when he handed it to her. Laitaille and her family were one of three families the Collier Red Cross has helped after fires during this week alone, Welty said.
Welty said he couldn’t remember the agency ever dealing with such a large single family. The suite the charity rented for her has three king-size beds and a pull-out sofa.
Laitaille, a native of the Bahamas who moved to Miami at 7 years of age, decided from an early age she wanted a big family. That way, each child would have someone to rely on and be relied upon. She was once engaged to be married to the man who fathered eight of her children, but he moved back to the east coast instead.
Since her van broke down two months ago, she has been unable to work as a private nurse and has been living on child support. A family friend this week put up the money to rent a van for her to get around.
Welty said that since the Red Cross only offers short-term help, he hoped another charity would step in by the end of the week to help the family find housing.
Laitaille, who grew up in the Baptist church, has turned to her faith to ease her frayed emotions. On Tuesday night, she read the comforting Psalm 23 seven times.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” it reads. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. ...”
Well yeah ... that's what I meant ;-)
ROFLOL!
She is 408 months old, been pregnant about 90 months, had to sleep some time, could not have had much time left to work!
I guess she never heard of public transportation. This article ticks me off instead of doing what it was intended to do. I have trouble being sympathetic to someone so irresponsible.
"The kids can't go to school, they have no clothes." --Lie
"I can't work because my van broke down."--Lie, ride the bus, get a job at the hospital, I see jobs all the time for nurses listed. There is a shortage.
"I was engaged but daddy moved to the east coast." Oh the horror, moving to spend your life with someone who fathered 8 of your children. Oh the humanity...
No clothes, so no school? Van broken, so no work?
Yeah ... by all means folks, give some money to help this bimbo out so she can carry on.
You're probably right, if welfare still pays a per-child premium. However, even a nurses' aide can make as much as $10-$15/hr in nursing homes. I worked my way though college as a nurses' aide. The trick is (1) work innner-city homes, which give "danger pay", and (2) work through a staffing agency, which pays 50% more but still gives you 40+ hours. You can also clean up in a place that pays time and a half for overtime or per diem work.
My dad was an LPN, and he made as much as $50/hr, though $20/hr was more usual. The higher pay was for Christmas eve in a bad part of Boston--and in fact he was robbed that night, by a street gang looking for narcotics.
Worst case should be around $6 for a nurses' aide starting out, and $12 for an LPN starting out. "Low pay," I spose. But if welfare beats that, then welfare is a serious racket.
I wonder about the neighbor that is single with 5 children...
The article states she has been living off of child support.
What a whining loser. We'll be seeing her 'chilrun' in lockup real soon.
So you worked your way through college on $10 an hour. Did you pay childcare and other expenses for ten kids on that?
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;"
Apparently he maketh her lie down in a lot of other places too.
I know nothing about where this women lives, but I know I've lived places where public transportation didn't exist... I'm not going to presume that a woman who hasn't worked in a few weeks over car trouble is inately sucking down society.
There aren't busses everywhere... perhaps there are where she lives, perhaps not, I don't know.. but there are a LOT of places where public transportation does not exist.
Truly impossible and therefore ridiculous!
I'll donate some duct tape, so long as she uses it to keep her legs together.
I believe the NDN runs feature stories like this on the front page with tongue-in-cheek. They run stories like this quite often no doubt to demonstrate the degree of stupidity in our society.
You are right, there's a big difference in pay for an R.N., L.P.N. and a Nurse's Aide or assistant. A difference because of the education levels among them.
An R.N. where I live commands decent pay and I suspect it is the same everywhere.
If she is an LPN, she's taking care likely of folks in their own homes.. which makes doing the job in an area without GOOD public transportation next to impossible without a car.
So ready to jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts....
She was once engaged to be married to the man who fathered eight of her children, but he moved back to the east coast instead.
This is just disgusting. At least someone is paying child support.
I'm totally against state foster parent schemes, but am for a return to state operated orphanages (or, childrens' homes.)
These ten fatherless children should be taken from this breed sow in order that they might have a chance some day. As it stands they have no chance.
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