VANCOUVER — When flames rushed through the front door into the hallway of the family townhouse about 2:30 a.m. on Monday, 14-year-old Sohail Koshkoye Delshad ran to the master bedroom, alongside his mother and brother.
Fire eventually engulfed the interior of the apartment.
Sohail cracked open a bug screen in order to jump out the window and fall onto the trampoline below.
“I took my brother and tried to push him onto the trampoline … [but] he whipped his head back, because he was scared,” Sohail said, fighting back tears.
Sohail said he then fell down, surrounded by smoke and unable to speak or breathe. Fumes obstructed his vision and he could no longer find the others.
Eventually, he thought his only choice was to jump.
As a flower memorial for the victims of the North Vancouver apartment fire grows on scene, the teen survivor who lost his mother and brother recounted a night of devastation.
“I wish they got out instead of me,” he said.
“I don’t care about the apartment, I don’t care about the possessions I lost. I just wish my mom and brother go out.”
His father, who was separated from the rest of the family and cornered on the balcony, also managed to jump and survive.
Sohail described seeing a propane tank exploding just moments after his father landed on the ground. North Vancouver RCMP said flames were 30 metres in the air by the time officials got to the scene.
Sohail’s seven-year-old brother, Sepehr, died in the fire.
So did his mother, Narges Casnajad, both killed before they could jump.
“My mom couldn’t live without my brother and my brother couldn’t live without my mom,” Sohail said.
His father remains in hospital with extensive burns on his arms and legs.
On Tuesday, Sohail stopped by the playground at the 170-unit apartment complex to read messages and flowers the community had brought to the scene.
“She was so kind,” he said of his mother. “Even if everybody else was sad, she made everybody else happy.”
Narges Casnajad was remembered as a supportive and caring mother and neighbour, by her friends and family.
“She was a person that always supported every person, everybody in the community,” Leila Negahban SAID. “And her son was friends with my son.”
A GoFundMe campaign collecting money for the victims of the fire was launched by Jacqueline Diamond — a North Vancouver resident who previously lived in the Mountain Village Garden Apartments.
“I remember when I first met [Casnajad], it was at the dollar store where she worked,” Diamond said. “She always used to give my daughter balloons. She was just such a happy person — and her smile just brightened you up.”
Seventeen units in the wooden, two-storey complex were extensively damaged, displacing about 70 people, RCMP said.
Twelve survivors were treated in area hospitals for injuries ranging from burns to smoke inhalation.
An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the fire.
