A young Coastline Housing customer sprung into action to save his family from a house fire in Camborne.
When Rayen Molton, aged 10, awoke to the sight and smell of smoke upstairs, he acted quickly to call 999, wake up his mum and get her out of the house.
Thanks to his quick actions, both mum and son escaped without injury, although they sadly lost a number of household items including many of Rayen’s beloved toys.
Mum Karen explains: “Within minutes the Fire Service was on the scene and extinguishing the fire. We are incredibly lucky to be alive. Words can’t describe how grateful I am that Rayen woke up and saw the smoke. I tell him every day how brilliant he is and I’m so proud of him. Everyone who has helped us since the fire has been so incredibly kind. People ask me what we have lost in terms of belongings but I prefer to think of it as what we have saved. And we managed to save quite a number of items thanks to the quick actions of the Fire Service and Coastline.”
Arriving shortly after the event to assist the family was Coastline Housing’s Out of Hours Manager Tanya Bauer. She quickly arranged for alternative temporary accommodation for the family within Camborne and set about purchasing some emergency furniture and bedding for them to use.
Tanya explained: “Without Rayen’s quick actions, the Fire Service told us that we would have potentially been looking at a fatal fire with one or two casualties which doesn’t even bear thinking about. Despite losing so many of his toys, he’s remained incredibly brave and caring throughout the whole experience.”
The family continued to be helped by a team of colleagues from Coastline who all worked to help decontaminate the items that could be saved from the house, made the home safe and began the work of taking away items that could not be saved. Repair work to begin bringing the home back into a habitable condition is still ongoing by teams from Coastline and will be for some time.
Two of the Operatives who worked with the family for many hours following the initial fire were Lennie and Carl, who were both delighted to visit the family at their new home the next week along with Tanya to present Rayen with some toys to replace some of those he lost in the fire.
Tanya adds: “Another big shout out must go to Steve from Cornwall Furniture Outlet on Cardrew Industrial Estate. He was closed when I phoned him to explain the situation, but hearing what had happened he made a special trip into his shop to deliver the beds and assemble them for Ryan and Karen at their new temporary home. It’s been a true team effort.”