QLD:Husband, father tells of mountainous grief

AAP General News (Australia)
08-26-2011
QLD:Husband, father tells of mountainous grief

BRISBANE, Aug 26 AAP - "My wife, she took all my kids and leave me here."

With that harrowing sentence, Jeremiah Lale conveyed the enormity of his loss.

Two days after losing his wife and five children to a horrific house fire in Brisbane,
the 50-year-old has spoken of his desperate fight to save them.

They were among 11 members of an extended family who perished in the inferno at Slacks
Creek, south of Brisbane, soon after midnight on Wednesday.

In an address on Friday, Mr Lale and others from the Samoan and Tongan family shared
the terrible events that have left them facing their darkest hour.

Family members told how Mr Lale, 50, woke in the room he shared with his wife Teukisia
Lale, 42, known as Neti, to find it choked with smoke.

Then came the screams of his children - Jerry, 18, Paul, 17, Lafoa'i, 14, Sela, 10,
and Richie, 8 - who were sleeping elsewhere in the house.

He yelled to his wife to gather the children in a room and he ran to the back door.

But when he kicked it open, the stairs that would have carried them to safety were gone.

He ran back to the room where he'd told his family to congregate, but they were not
there. He ran frantically through the burning home, trying to check other rooms.

"I keep calling my wife's name, my boys, my girls, no one answered," Mr Lale said.

"At that time, I thought to myself they are already outside. They've jumped from the window."

Once on the ground he cried out again for his family.

"No one answers and I realised that at that time my wife and my kids, they can't make it.

"If I knew my wife and kids not outside the house, there's no way I'm going to leave
them in there. I'm going to stay inside the house with them.

"My wife, she took all my kids and leave me behind."

Earlier Mr Lale's nephew, who shares the same name, said the fire had plunged the family
into its darkest hour.

He said his uncle had done all he could to save his family but added: "On that dreadful
evening, the good Lord had plans for our family".

He thanked the local community, emergency services and people from across the nation
for the arms of support they had thrown around the family.

Another cousin, Betsy Neal, said the family couldn't express their heartbreak.

"It's still very, very raw for us," she said.

"It was just the worst call you ever get.

"We just pray that nobody ever has to experience that."

Ms Neal said she was grateful her uncle Jeremiah had survived the fire, even if he
wished he had died too.

"I thank God that he spared those three men ... in his goodness he did that," she said.

The others to survive where family patriarch Tau Taufa, 66, and Misi Matauina, 22.

Mr Taufa lost his wife Fusi, 57, adult daughter, Annamaria, and eight grandchildren.

Mr Matauina lost his partner Annamaria, 23, and the two daughters they had together
Lahaina, 7, and Kalahnie, 3.

The eighth grandchild to die was Ardelle Lee, 16, the daughter of Fusi and Tau's other
daughter, Treicee, who had left her with her grandparents on the night of the fire.

The younger Mr Lale said the tragedy showed how important it was to hold family close.

"If you have you children and your loved ones, you cuddle them and you love them and
you tell them you love them," he said.

"Don't take anything for granted.

"Don't let any rift ... happen between your families, go and reconcile with them and
love one another and hold on to your loved ones."

AAP tnf/dep

KEYWORD: FIRE 2ND UPDATE

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