Olivia Patterson, six, was playing outside with a friend when she realised her family’s semi-detached home in Riccall, North Yorkshire, was on fire – and acted quickly to save them
A brave schoolgirl has been praised for her quick thinking after she dashed into her burning family home to save her sleeping mum and siblings.
Olivia Patterson, aged six, was playing outside with a friend when she noticed that their semi-detached house in Riccall, North Yorkshire, was ablaze.
She ran inside the property where she found her mum Laura, 29, asleep on the sofa along with her siblings Joel-James, one, and Tiffany, two. Thanks to Olivia’s actions, all three were woken up and managed to escape the fire unscathed.
Olivia’s grandmother, Sadie Gelder, 54, expressed immense pride in the ‘amazing’ youngster for rescuing her family from the fire. “We are absolutely so proud of her. She’s got ADHD so she’s been absolutely amazing. We can’t believe Olivia got Laura out – she’s six-years-old and ran in a burning building,” she said.
The fire started at Laura’s next-door neighbour’s house on April 4 and quickly spread to the upstairs of her three-bedroom property. An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing, but it is suspected that a phone charger may be to blame.
But Sadie says that nobody actually went into the house to rescue Laura and the children, because they didn’t think anyone was home. She said: “Olivia saw people in the street but she just ran in to wake her mum up. She was shouting ‘wake up mum, the house is on fire – wake up the babies’. The people in the street didn’t think anyone was in because there wasn’t a car on the drive.”
Sadie says that the family are now staying in an Airbnb because they have lost almost everything in the blaze. A Gofundme fundraising page has now been set up by Laura’s former colleagues to help support the family.
Sadie said: “They managed to get a few of the baby’s clothes but everything else has gone, including their birthday presents. People have been donating beds, bedding and towels – things like that. She should be getting another council house but it’s all the little things so it’s just to help her build everything back up.”
