House Fire Victim Says She Still Believes In Miracles
FALLS CITY – A Falls City woman escaped injury when her house at 1108 Lane St. caught fire Wednesday morning, but is struggling to help her son with autism adjust.
Michelle Bice said she saw the fire from behind an old dryer on the back porch and called 9-1-1. It soon spread to the attic and firefighters say her 100-year-old house was engulfed in flames when they arrived.
Bice had been through the loss of a home fire when her mom’s place burned in 1996, but her own experience not only took the only home her 15-year-old son, Ray, had ever known, but two pet dogs and a visiting dog.
She had put her Christmas tree up after Thanksgiving and had wrapped gifts beneath it.
Bice: “When I went in the house I just cried. Nothing is left.”
Her son’s disability includes blindness in one eye and what Bice describes as a “black spot on his brain” that came with complications of child birth.
She said it is hard for him to cope with starting over and he continues to ask for his things, although she has showed him the ashes.
When he was little, doctors actually recommended game systems to help develop the muscle in his eye and one of the gifts below the tree this year was PlayStation 4.
Bice: “When he was born the cord was around him twice. He died once and I died twice. He’s my miracle baby.”
She said she still believes in miracles and hopes that one comes their way soon.
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Dogs lost in fire
