She stands outside 316, her three-year old clutched in her arms.
Smoke billows from the gaping apartment door as they try to decipher her screams.
She’s frantic. Hysterical.
And that’s when it hits them: Her babies, her two twenty-month old baby girls are trapped inside the burning room.
And so former Quesnel residents Matt Gallant, 28 and his brother Simon, 25 ran into apartment 316, into the smoke, into the heat; to save two tiny bodies from sure death.
They didn’t even know their names.
It was Jan 4. around dinner when they first heard the smoke alarm in the three-level Surrey apartment building.
“Not uncommon,” notes Matt.
Then they heard the screaming.
It took three rounds of the smoke-filled apartment to locate the twin’s room. Three dashes through thick soot, three frantic rushes back to the front door, three gasping gulps of cleaner air before plunging back into darkness, back into the sweltering black heat inside.
But on the third attempt, Simon found the room holding the baby girls hostage.
The smoke hit him like a punch to the face as the wooden door swung open.
It was Simon who screamed to his brother to get the flashlights before dashing out to catch his breath.
Running back into 316 the smoke curled less than six inches from the floor. Matthew hunkered his impressive frame close to the carpet, sweeping large arcs of single beamed light.
It was then he discovered the babies beds were empty.
Casting the frail light across the room, Matt’s foot caught a small form.
Reaching down his hands grasp the tiny body, lifts her up and rushes her to safety.
He doesn’t know who he passed her off to, just that as soon as he did he plunged back into the apartment for her baby sister.
The second child was found quickly, lifted and cradled.
As Matt approached the apartment door his brother’s voice penetrated the haze.
He yelled back his location, they met at 316s entrance and rushed out the door; Simon directing the mother and toddler to the nearest exit; Matt still cradling the small body.
As they made their way to centre court, sirens wailed in the distance. Someone wrapped the babies in blankets, firemen showed up, paramedics swarmed, a window breaks and a burning bed is hurled from 316.
The brothers were thoroughly checked out, released and made their way home. It would be close to five days later before the reality of what they did hits home.
“They keep saying we’re heroes,” Matt said softly, during an interview with the Observer Saturday morning.
“But it doesn’t feel like it. We just want to make sure they’re OK.”
Later Saturday morning Ava Keddie passed away at Vancouver Children’s Hospital with her family by her side. Her sister Samantha is in stable but critical condition. Fire officials believe the fire was caused by a lamp touching some bedding.
