Woman succumbs to injuries after fire

SEVEN days after she was severely burnt in a fire which destroyed her La Brea home, 29-year-old Mary Thompson died yesterday. The woman, who was burnt on her lower body, died around 7:10 am at Ward three of the San Fernando General Hospital. Her two children, Lashelle, seven and Safia, five, who also sustained burns, are still being treated at hospital.

Police said nurses were not likely to tell the children about their mother’s death until their discharge from hospital. The children suffered burns to the face, legs and hands. Fire razed through the family’s Sobo Village home around 6 am last Tuesday. Thompson, who lived with common-law husband Willard Baptiste and his mother, Eileen Aberdeen, was in the house with the children when the blaze began. They became trapped in the small house and Thompson and her children were forced to jump ten feet out of a window to safety. When contacted yesterday, Baptiste said he could not comment on his wife’s passing.