A rural Saskatchewan community is rallying around a family that has lost everything in a devastating house fire just as they were eagerly anticipating the homecoming of their one-month-old triplets.
Mom Danielle Johnston made nation-wide headlines last month when she saved her newborn daughter with CPR after suddenly going into labour at home in Griffin. She was fighting contractions as she did chest compressions and helped baby Karlee breathe while waiting more than 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
Her husband Trevor was at work at the time, but son Dillon called 911, helped his mom wrap the baby in a blanket and drove out to the highway to flag down the ambulance.
The remaining two babies, Jack and Liam, were delivered by Caesarean section in a Regina hospital. All three babies, born at 32 weeks, remained in the neonatal intensive care as they continued to develop.
"Just on Cloud 9 because I've got all these beautiful kids and life can't actually get any better than what it is right now," Danielle, 34, told The Canadian Press in early August. Karlee was released first and Jack and Liam were cleared to come home early this week.
But then the family, which includes four older children, got a call from their neighbour that their home was engulfed in flames. They were all in Regina, about 130 kilometres away, with the babies.
The family lost one of its dog and two cats, along with all of their possessions, including the strollers, high chairs, cribs, clothing and diapers they had prepared for the arrival of the triplets.
Yet, they remain grateful.
“We’re all OK, so there is a lot to be thankful for,” Danielle told CTV News Regina from the scene of the fire. The family home is now a pile of twisted sheet metal, rubble, and charred two-by-fours. They have been left sifting through debris for Danielle’s wedding dress and badly singed photo albums.
“We’ve endured worse,” said Trevor Johnston. “I mean, even out here just with storms and the struggles of the oil patch throughout the last five years. It’s always a struggle but I mean this is nothing compared to what we went through a month ago with the birth of the babies. I mean, this I know we’ll get through.”
A GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $56,000 of its $100,000 goal to help the family get back on its feet. The Johnstons do have insurance and are looking for a temporary home.
“It’s just things and we plan to rebuild here, obviously and we’ll continue on raising our family, so I mean, we’ll get through it,” said Trevor.
“I don’t even know how to say thank you because thank you isn’t enough,” Danielle said of the support the family has received.
“It’s just heartbreaking to have to go through that situation and then you’re just about at the light at the end of the tunnel and it moves so far off in the distance. You find out that your house is completely gone. It’s completely engulfed in flames,” said family friend Tressa Mitchell.
“Your boys are released the next day from hospital and you have nowhere to take them. There is no home to go home to.”
-With a report by Gina Martin, CTV Regina
