Russell Island house fire: Survivor tells of final horrific moments
A woman who managed to escape a ferocious house fire on Russell Island that claimed the life of her five nephews and their father has revealed new details about the boys and the last time she saw them.
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Samantha Stephenson stood in the yard of her burning home and screamed for her babies, hoping they were alive, that they had escaped the flames and were somewhere safe.
Beside her, her sister kept silent. She couldn’t tell her they were all dead.
Connie Campbell, who along with her older sister escaped the Russell Island inferno that killed a father and his five boys, has told how she jumped from the balcony when flames began burning her feet.
“I knew for sure everything is gone – but Sam is still outside screaming, ‘My babies, my babies’ … she’s still saying, ‘They have to be here, they have to be around … they have to have gotten out the back way,’ ” she said.
“And I don’t say anything because I know she is wrong and I don’t want to tell her she’s wrong.”
Wayne Godinet, 34, and the couple’s children, Zack, 11, Harry, 10, four-year-old twins Kyza and Koah and Nicky, 3, died when their island home caught alight at 6am on Sunday.
The children’s mother Ms Stephenson, 28, and Ms Campbell, 20, managed to get to safety.
Police, firefighters and paramedics rushed to the island cul-de-sac after multiple triple-0 callers reported a fire at the home had spread to neighbouring properties.
The Todman St home was completely destroyed. The upstairs level where the five boys slept had collapsed.
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll on Wednesday said the investigation into the fire could take “days if not weeks”.
“These investigations are incredibly complex and difficult so whilst the community and I think many people are hoping that we might have a resolution in the next day or two that might not be the case,” she said.
“This may be ongoing for days if not weeks…we have to be meticulous and comprehensive in what is a complex investigation and at the end of the day we will get to the bottom of what occurred.”
Ms Campbell described how she woke on the upper level of the home to Mr Godinet’s screams of: “Fire, fire” from the other side of the house.
She said she jumped out of bed and put on some pants before running to the bedroom of the three younger boys.
“A second after I get there, Wayne gets there … and I let him pick up the three youngest boys because he’s stronger than me,” Ms Campbell said.
“And so at that point, I think OK, he’s got them. I’m going to run back to my room and grab my phone, see where the older boys are.”
She said in the 10 seconds it took her to run to her room, the hallway became inaccessible.
“It’s like, completely black smoke,” Ms Campbell said.
“There may as well have been like a physical wall in between me and the rest of the house because it was like, just thick black smoke.
“It was unbreathable, (it) completely burned my eyes.
“I tried to look around, up and down the hallway, but I couldn’t see, I couldn’t see anybody because the smoke was that thick.”
Ms Campbell said she tried to find another way to look for Mr Godinet and the children, but the fire forced her out on to the veranda.
“Everything goes, everything is so fast, and smoke is billowing and billowing out into the rest of the house,” she said.
“By the time I get out to the veranda, in like five seconds, the only way I can breathe is by hoisting my body over the hand railing and trying to breathe in the outside air.”
Unable to get back into the house, Ms Campbell said she looked down to see a red glow underneath the veranda’s boards.
“And that’s when I see Sam out the front (on the ground) who hears me scream and starts screaming for me, telling me to jump,” she said.
“I keep trying to run around the veranda, keep burning my feet.
“There’s no other way to get into the house, I can feel the heat of the fire everywhere and so I just chuck my phone down to the ground and I jump off and I land on my two feet and then on my hip.”
She described feeling intense pain and said she was “screaming and yelling” as she lay on the ground.
“I look up and I can see that the balcony I was just on is fully in flames at this point,” Ms Campbell said.
“I start to crawl away because that is all I can muster up. I grab my phone and then I’m halfway out into the yard. I hobble over to Sam and that’s when I realise that she is the only one out there.
“Within five minutes of me turning around … the whole thing is on fire. Another five minutes go by and then I start to see the floor collapse, the stairs collapse, the roof cave in.”
She said she didn’t know how to tell her sister that Mr Godinet and the children could not have survived.
“I watched Wayne grab those boys himself and turn around and go for the rest of them, even though he probably knew he couldn’t carry that many – he couldn’t get that many out,” Ms Campbell said.
“It still doesn’t feel real, I watched it happen … I was probably the last person to see any of them.
“The survivor’s guilt – it should have been me. If I had just tried harder and this and that – I knew that’s stupid or wrong but it’s just how I feel.”
She said she believed the fire “definitely” started downstairs because “that’s where I could feel the heat”.
“That’s where it was the hottest and possibly over the other side of the house where the stairs were – and that’s why Wayne got trapped,” Ms Campbell said.
Asked about whether she believed there could be any suspicious circumstances behind the fire, Ms Campbell said: “It’s not even a possibility.”
She said she did not hear the smoke alarms activate and was aware that her sister had expressed concerns about them.
“They were very happy and very loved and I think anyone would tell you that,” Ms Campbell said.
“I would regularly go on walks with Nicky, take him to daycare, take the four-year-old boys to school, take even the older boys out... to school.
“Every one of them would greet every person they would see on the street.
“Nicky would always … he was only three, he would greet neighbours he’s never seen before, ‘hi, what are you doing?’, start conversations with them.
“I watched every day how much those boys were cared for and loved.”
Ms Campbell said she had been living with her sister at the Russell Island property since February.
She said Ms Stephenson and Mr Godinet had a loving relationship.
“They loved each other very much, cared for each other very much – were very set on each other and staying together,” Ms Campbell said.
“(They) had been together for 11 years – they were definitely set on each other.”
Ms Carroll said police had spoken with Ms Stephenson about what happened.
“Look, obviously while I won’t go into the actual conversation, police had to speak to her, but I just think it’s … you can’t even describe what it’s like for a mother to have to go through what she’s gone through,” she said.
“I was even at the school yesterday where young children and teachers just can’t come to terms with what’s occurred.
“Even the first day, it was the shock, but the second and third and fourth day, the reality is actually setting in.
“So for that family, for the mother, the family and community, the years ahead, the days and weeks ahead are just going to be horrendous.”
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