Career Police Officer Loses House to Fire; Needs Your Help!
Career woman police officer Rachael Serrano and her family are homeless after a fire destroyed their home in San Ignacio last Thursday. Today, News Five visit with Serrano, who, since the disaster, has been living in a room while her children are staying in Belize City and elsewhere in Cayo. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Career woman police officer Rachael Serrano and her children once lived here on Third Street in San Ignacio Town. But sometime between eleven-thirty p.m. on January twenty-first and one o’clock the following morning, a fire broke inside the house’s living room as they were in deep slumber. While they are lucky to be alive, they lost everything, and the family escaped with only the clothes on their backs.
Rachael Serrano
Rachael Serrano, Fire Victim
“I was awaken by a loud bang on my room door. I quickly opened my room door and my son was in front of me asking me what happened, but telling me at the same time that my house is on fire. I looked at the right and I saw smoke and fire, smoke and fire. Mister Moody, I run out of the house quickly and I remember my daughter cause she sleeps to the front. I bolt in back in the room and the fire and smoke is coming and I had decided that I will die with my daughter. That’s my daughter, I will die with her. In that same second, I heard and pat, somebody knocking and saying, “Ma, weh yo Gwen; I deh yah.” I run out, [but by] that time, I had already inhaled smoke and all of that.”
The single mother of two ran onto the road, screaming for help. Her neighbors came out, and the National Fire Service was called and managed to extinguish the fire, which, Serrano says, was due to a faulty electrical wire.
Rachael Serrano
“I run out, I ran, I bawled, I shouted for help because I was not concerned about saving the items; I was concerned about the fire getting out of order and causing damage to other properties. It was a quiet night, you know there is curfew and nobody is on the street, people came out, they extinguished the fire and took it under control. Mister Moody, that fire; I watch the house burn down. Burn down, seeing my stuff – Mister Moody I work very hard. I lost everything in my house.”
Luckily the house was insured, but the family has been left without a roof over their heads. Serrano says she and her children have been split up, but the Police Department, where she has been working for twenty-six years, will be helping her with a place to stay while she tries to rebuild and recover.
Rachael Serrano
“The assistant commissioner of police, who spoke with my officer in charge, telling me that the okay has been given for me to live in the quarters there is Benque, so I intend to move to Benque. I don’t know for how long. I am wearing clothes that are not mine, but this is one of the things. It is challenging, it is hard, it is difficult, it is devastating, but I gotta do what I gotta do. I gotta be strong for my children; I am the mother and father for my children. So I continue to ask the public – whatever assistance they have to offer, I am welcome to any assistance.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
Anyone who would like to assist Rachael Serrano can contact her at 614-6900 or make deposits at Atlantic Bank account number: 211-780-857.
