Mother and son rescued from blaze
A mother and child were rescued by neighbours after a suspected arson attack on their home in Stourport today.
Kerry Phillips and her son 14-month-old son Toby were saved by up to 12 neighbours who went to their aid after seeing them calling for help at an upstairs window.
Neighbours say there had been reports of a prowler in the area recently and today the house was taped off while police and fire experts were investigating the cause of the blaze, which broke out at 1.15am.
Kerry and Toby were taken to Worcestershire Royal Hospital suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation.
Neighbour Kim Lambert, aged 48, also needed hospital treatment after injuring her hand as she broke a window to try to reach the trapped mother and child.
Children's worker Mrs Lambert told how Kerry's father, Gary, used ladders to help them escape from the blazing house in Worth Crescent.
Mrs Lambert described how she was woken by screaming and raced outside to discover "thick black smoke pouring from the building". She said: "I saw the front door of the house blazing and Kerry was leaning out of the window with her baby in her arms. I thought that they would never get out and smashed the window with my fist to let the smoke out while my youngest daughter, Joanna – a 16-year-old drama student at Kidderminster – rang the fire brigade and ambulance.
"My other daughter, Stephanie, a 20-year-old student nurse, fetched buckets of water to try to douse the flames.
"They got out through the back window and it was Kerry's dad, Gary, who was he real hero. He climbed over a fence and put up ladders to reach them. It is an absolute miracle that they got out alive."
Fire crews from Kidderminster and Stourport, who had only just finished dealing with another house blaze in Kidderminster, arrived at the scene to find both the mother and child had been rescued.
Mr Martin Preece, 52, who lives opposite, said: "We were woken by a commotion outside and I saw smoke billowing out of the windows. There was someone with a hosepipe and neighbour Pat Cole was using buckets of water to try to put out the blaze.
"Kerry's brother Mark, who lives nearby, was also out trying to help."
Crew Manager Gareth Clarke, from Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, said: "Neighbours managed to get ladders to the building and somehow got the mother and child out.
"They had a narrow escape but a woman neighbour suffered cuts to her hand after putting her fist through a window trying to help."
l Earlier fire crews and five appliances from Kidderminster, Stourport, Bromsgrove and Stourbridge tackled a chip pan blaze in a two-storey terraced house at Drake Crescent in Kidderminster.
A man in his 40s, who tried to extinguish the fire, suffered burns to his head, arms and chest. He was taken to Worcestershire Royal and later transferred to Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham.
