Severely burned girl thrives, helps her family heal too

Amira Williams was 3 years old when fire swept through her home and burned more than 95% of her body. Children so young and so badly burned normally aren’t expected to live.

This Baltimore Sun story describes what happened in 2007 when her mom was awakened by smoke and flames in a second-floor hallway: “She ordered Amira’s father to jump out of the window so she could drop her older daughter, then 4, to him. She positioned herself on the sill, the window propped open on her shoulder, but as she reached for Amira, she fell.” Read the full story here.

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control says kids 4 and younger are at higher risk of injury and death in fires. Further, during 2009, fires in the United Stated killed one person every 175 minutes and injured one person every 31 minutes, the report says.

Here are tips from the Home Safety Council on how to keep families safe from fires and burns.