A father is recovering in hospital with burns to his face and body after he dashed back into a ferocious house fire to retrieve family documents.
The blaze was ignited by an electric heater that caught fire around 4am on Monday, while father-of-two Justin Verduyn was asleep.
A Terrifying Escape
“It was pretty terrifying and I couldn’t even get out of the room because the door was locked,” he told 7NEWS.
Smoke quickly filled the Ballajura home in Perth’s north, where his two children were also asleep and his wife Alice was breastfeeding in another room.
“I opened the door, he appeared to be quite disoriented,” Alice said. “We just ran out with the pyjamas that we were wearing at the time. We didn’t even have any shoes on.”
A Split-Second Decision
The family escaped just in time, but the dad made a split-second decision to run back into the burning home to salvage what he could.
“I was trying to get the passport documents that we have, plus all of our birth certificates,” he said.
The flames were ferocious, and he suffered burns to his face and body.
Hospital and Recovery
He was taken to Joondalup Hospital before being transferred to the burns unit at Fiona Stanley.
It took nine fire crews to control the fire, and neighbours jumped in to help. Eight years of memories inside the home have been reduced to rubble.
Community Support and Warning
The family is now staying with relatives nearby and are insured. They say the road ahead will be long, but they hope to rebuild.
“In hindsight it could’ve been a lot worse if (Alice) was asleep and all kids weren’t able to get out,” fire and emergency services spokesperson Richard Monaghan said.
On Friday, the family thanked those first on the scene and shared their story as a warning to others.
“Yes we may have lost items ... but you can recognise that the lives we have come out with are so precious,” Alice said.
