MAHDIA COI: Tearful dorm mother recounts confusion as fire raged

Two of the children who were trapped in the Mahdia Secondary School dormitory when a fire broke out in May belong to Carlet Williams, the House Mother.

While her daughter was rescued and survived the tragedy, her five-year-old son, Adonijah Jerome was the only boy among the 20 children who perished in the blaze.

When she appeared before the ongoing Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the tragedy on Thursday, Williams recalled being awakened by screams and constant banging on her room door.

“Right away my heart started racing because this never happened before, they normally come and they would single rap and so on. But that night, it was more than one person,” Williams recalled as she broke down in tears.

She added, “…When I open my room door…some of them push and start run in and they start screaming ‘miss fire, fire in the building.”

Williams further told attorney, Keoma Griffith, who is leading evidence into the inquiry, that she rushed to grab the keys to open the dormitory door.

“I grab the keys and I decided to push way to go and see where the fire is …when I go and I take a look down the building the fire was up in the ceiling, heading from the bathroom area,” Williams said.

“I got so confused and scared…I tried to find the keys to open the door and I just couldn’t find the keys. Everything I put my hand on a key, I got to look for the hole on the lock to open and I keep trying from one key to the next,” the tearful Williams said.

“While I was trying to open the door, the key fell out of my hands. So I bend down and I start feeling. The girls that were around me were looking…I ended up finding back the keys. I tried and tried… the key fall for a second time. When it fall…I know that I couldn’t help the girls but that didn’t stop me from trying,” she wept.

And despite efforts, the Micobie resident said she failed to rescue any of the students.

“The room was full of girls. They were all jumping and screaming and running. Some of them were on the ground…they were lying there. I couldn’t see but while I walk in the room trying to find my son, feeling around, I know I step on some of them,” she said.

In fact, Williams said she had no firefighting training and there was no fire prevention equipment in sight.

She said she eventually managed to exit the female dormitory.

But up to that time, she could not locate Jermone or her daughter.

Williams said she later met Jerome’s father, Steve Jerome at the scene and he told her to pick up one of the girls who was lying on the ground. It turned out to be their daughter.

“All I saw was someone on the ground so I just grabbed them…the smoke that time, she passed out so I pulled her to the side,” Williams said.

Eventually, Williams further related, some girls were rescued from the building.

While she had plans to return to the burning building to rescue the trapped girls, Williams said she was unable to.

She said she made her way to the hospital and it was there that she learned that some of the girls had perished in the fire.

Only part of Williams’ testimony was open to members of the media. The remaining was held in camera.