MIDWAY CITY : Woman in House Fire Saves Son

A mother and her 3-year-old son were in critical condition Wednesday after she rescued him from a fire racing through their home by climbing through a smashed, jagged window with the boy clinging to her side, fire officials said.

The blaze began at 9 a.m. with what sounded like an explosion, 26-year-old Christine May said. She described the next five minutes as the longest of her life.

According to May and fire officials, her other son, 5-year-old Jason, was playing with matches and ignited a fire under a couch in the living room while his mother was napping.

Jason then went into her room and climbed into bed, and just as he snuggled up to her, she heard an explosion, May said, adding:

“The next thing I knew, the fire alarm went off and there were flames.”

She screamed for the live-in baby-sitter, Carey Mahaffey, to take Jason outside. And then she began searching for 3-year-old Timothy, who was sleeping in his bedroom.

By this time, the blaze had advanced through the house, May said, so she couldn’t reach Timothy’s room through the hallway.

Instead, she ran outside and smashed his window--how, she said, she couldn’t remember. Once inside, she was frantic when she didn’t see Timothy in his room.

“I kept yelling for him, and he kept yelling for me,” May recalled, her voice trembling.

She finally found him outside his room, and together they climbed back through his broken window, while flames spread through the house, she said.

“All I can think of right now is that I thank God I got my 3-year-old out in time because it only took about five minutes before the front of the house went up in flames,” she said hoarsely from the intensive care unit at the UCI Burn Center in Orange. “I’m lucky we’re both still alive.”

May was being treated for smoke inhalation and skin and facial cuts, and Timothy, who suffers from asthma, sustained second-degree burns over 40% of his body, Fire Capt. Dan Young said. Both were reported in critical but stable condition Wednesday evening at UCI Medical Center.

Both Jason and Mahaffey, 28, who was asleep in her room when the fire broke out, suffered smoke inhalation and were in stable condition at Humana Hospital in Westminster, Young said.

The fire gutted the interior of the three-bedroom house at 14771 Jackson St., officials said. Twenty-five firefighters contained the blaze within seven minutes. Young estimated the damage at $40,000.

Midway City is an unincorporated area between Huntington Beach and Westminster.

Christine May said she and her husband, Robert, 30, have always hidden matches from their sons and 7-year-old daughter, Charese. She said she doesn’t know how Jason got them.