Lucas Cox relives horror fire that killed his neighbour and her six-year-old daughter

Lucas Cox ended up in a coma for weeks, after he ran into his neighbour’s house to save three-year-old Brooklyn Carmady. The young girl’s mother and sister did not survive.

Pictured is mother Veronica Carmady and her two daughters, Brooklyn and Aurora.

A neighbour who suffered critical injuries pulling a sleeping tot to safety from her bed in a house blaze has told how he battled falling embers and smoke so dense that it felt like “being at the bottom of the ocean”.

Lucas Cox evacuated eight people from a Heckenberg home after the property exploded into flames just after midnight on February 19.

Mr Cox, who was visiting the property, then fearlessly dived into the inferno to save Brooklyn Carmady, 3. After fumbling around in oily black smoke, he found her slumped in the bottom bunk bed in the bedroom.

Her screaming mother Veronica Carmady went back into the home looking for her child Aurora Devries, six.

Both became engulfed by flames and failed to survive the blaze in Heckenberg.

Recounting the horror of that night in February Mr Cox told how he broke through the bedroom window with his hands, severing tendons to three fingers, having climbed onto a swing frame to reach the smouldering rear bedroom.

Lucas Cox helped save at a house fire in Heckenberg which killed Veronica Carmady and daughter Aurora. Picture: Jeremy Piper

“I was cooked, there was smoke everywhere. I couldn’t see, I was gasping for air and there were embers from the roof tiles raining down on me but I kept looking,” he said.

“I got Brooklyn and passed her out to her mother through the window and gasped for air through the window and went back for Aurora.

“I was told to feel for her on the top bunk but could not find her, it was pitch black but I searched on my hands and knees for her on the floor in case she had passed out somewhere.”

Pictured is Aurora, who died alongside her mother Veronica Carmady. Picture: Supplied

The boat mechanic went on: “I had no shirt on, the flames were burning my back and arms, it was so hot and black.

“Bits of burning things were raining down on me. But I found Brooklyn, that’s one good thing.

“I couldn’t find Aurora, there was smoke everywhere, I was engulfed, it was like being in the bottom of the ocean but I tried,” he said forlornly.

Lucas Cox, who helped save a six year old from a house fire in Heckenberg, suffered critical injuries.

Lucas Cox severed tendons to three fingers battling a house fire in Heckenberg which killed Veronica Carmady and daughter Aurora Devries.

Overcome by the effects of smoke inhalation, Mr Cox clambered out of the window and jumped more than 2m down, telling the hysterical mother: “I’ve tried, I can’t find her, I’m so sorry”.

Defying warnings from her partner Chris Denning, Ms Carmady went through flames to search for her daughter.

Even though the police were on the scene within minutes, the flames had already taken hold of the single-level fibro home. Four fire trucks with 16 fire fighters were called to the scene. It took crews about 90 minutes to extinguish the fire.

Veronica Carmady climbed in through a rear bedroom window to save her six-year-old daughter from a blaze but both died entwined on the bedroom floor. Photo: Jeremy Piper

They found Veronica and Aurora by the window.

“Her mother was lying on top of Aurora shielding her, they were trying to get out of the window but didn’t make it,” said Mr Cox.

Mr Cox was rushed to Concord Hospital in a critical condition and said he woke up after three days in a coma.