DECATUR, Ga. — Five members of one family were killed in a Decatur house fire early Tuesday morning.
The fire killed a mother and her two young children, as well as two more family members. Five other family members were barely able to escape.
Tuesday evening, one of the survivors, Damaria Brinkley, spoke of how everyone in the house was asleep, and the smoke woke her up.
“The fire just spread too fast,” Brinkley said, remembering running through the smoke and flames. “It was so smoky in there, we could barely see.”
Brinkley and her boyfriend ran out of the house carrying their two daughters, ages one and two. And in those seconds, she said, her older sister, Terryona Regular, was calling to her.
“I heard her (Terryona), she was saying, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ Brinkley said. “I thought she was behind me. I heard her say she was coming.”
As the fire spread quickly inside the house, Brinkley said Terryona was assuring her that she and her own two daughters were escaping, too.
By Tuesday night, Brinkley -- recalling Terryona's last moments -- was out of tears.
“When we made it outside,” Brinkley said, “I kind of heard her beating on her window, I guess she was trying to break the glass, so she could get her kids out. And then, it just, I heard her scream, ‘No!’ And then it just went completely silent.”
Brinkley’s boyfriend, Roshad Scott-James, had just gone back into the house and pulled her aunt, Diane Regular, outside to safety, saving her life. Then, Scott-James immediately tried to rescue Terryona and her daughters
“He went back in again to try to get my sister and her kids, but the fire had spread all throughout the kitchen, he wasn’t even able to make it to them," Brinkley said.
Also lost were Brinkley’s uncles; Timothy Regular and Pedro Coney.
Brinkley's aunt, Diane Regular, is now hospitalized, and Brinkley said she is recovering.
Another one of their relatives, Native Pugh, helped set up an on-line fundraiser to try to pay for five funerals.
“Terryona was a loving person, always happy, always cracking jokes,” Pugh said. “It’s devastating.... We're all crying all day.”
“My sister (Terryona) was just the most loving person, ever,” Brinkley said. “I don’t know, I’m just in shock.”
The difference between life and death, she said, was just a matter of seconds, and now she and her family will be living with their loss forever.
On Wednesday evening, DeKalb Fire spokesperson Jaeson Daniels said the cause of the fire is deemed as undetermined at this time. They can't determine what actually started the fire because of the extensive destruction.