The Daily Beast
‘This Is Some Crazy Nightmare’: Mom tells of last minute moments with her 3 children who died in Texas’ power outage
Thanks to Jackie Nguyen Last Monday, Jackie Pham Nguyen was thankful she could still have power in her home in Texas. Her children – Colette (5), Edison (8) and Olivia (11) – played in the snow that morning before coming in for hot chocolate and leftovers. food of lunar New Year celebrations. For hours, they played Bananagrams and other board games, and their grandmother, Loan Le, joined them. The 75-year-old, who lost heat in her own home amid state power outages, braved icy roads to take shelter at their Sugar Land home. These three siblings die tragically in the Deep Freeze in Texas. It does not have to be this way. “Honestly, it was a wonderful day. We ate lunch at home, socialized. “The children were excited that they did not have school, because it was President’s Day, and we had the news in the background all the time,” Jackie said. “All day I was grateful that we were between 10 and 15 percent of Houston who had power.” When the lights went out at 5 p.m., the family was unpleasant. They hung out together for warmth, Jackie lit the fireplace and they continued playing. Around 21:30 or 22:00 Jackie put the children in the bed upstairs and went to sleep in her room downstairs. Four hours later the house was on fire. Jackie said she does not remember much about the evening, except that a firefighter informs her that the children – and her mother – were gone when she woke up in a hospital bed. “After that I could not breathe. I can not believe it yet. It’s a crazy nightmare and I’ll wake up any minute now, “Jackie told The Daily Beast. How did we all have this perfectly normal day and how did it end like this? “She said. Authorities are investigating what caused the fire, which comes amid extreme weather and a deadly power crisis in the state. Initial reports on social media suggest the inferno may have started with the fire that ignited the family. Dozens of people died in Texas – and across the United States – in last week’s winter storms, especially the cold in the Lone Star State, where millions of people lost electricity, heat and water due to infrastructure failures. Among the dead is 11-year-old Cristian Pineda, who died of suspected hypothermia in his freezing cold garage in Conroe, the sixth learner and his family came to the US from Honduras two years ago. Maria, Cristian ‘s Maria has filed a $ 100 million lawsuit against the state-owned enterprise, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and utility company Entergy Corporation. mother Etenesh Mersha and 7-year-old daughter Rakeb Shalemu have died of carbon monoxide poisoning after desperately searching for heat in their car. Andy Anderson, a Vietnam veteran in Crosby, died of hypothermia when he tried to get a generator running; he relies on an oxygen machine that does not work without electricity. There are many tragic stories of loss and probably more. Vanessa Kon, an aunt of the Nguyen children, told The Daily Beast she believes officials should have been prepared for the power grid disaster. Thanks to Jackie Nguyen “We do not know what happened,” Kon said. “We do not know why the lights went out that way. The city should have been prepared for that. Why was the power off? If the power had not been off, it would not have happened. For her part, Jackie did not even begin to consider accusations of negligence against power companies in Texas. “I’m currently in this kind of crisis mode,” Jackie told us in a long-stay hotel. “I’m just waiting for what people have to say.” ‘People Are Greedy’: The Absurd Electric Bills Slamming Texans. Jackie said she burned in a hospital for two days before leaving on the advice of doctors. For a few days she still smelled like the smoke from her burning house, until she finally found a hotel with running water. “I can not remember much of that night,” she said. ‘I got a lot of smoke inhalation. It did a bit of damage to my brain cognition. I actually hope a lot of it comes back. Because I want to put it all together. ‘Jackie remembers Olivia talking to her friends from a New York summer camp about Zoom that night, despite wanting to save energy on their electronic devices in anticipation of interruptions. ‘I’m thankful I let it go up a bit so she could get it. So her friends could have that memory, ‘Jackie said. She remembers the kids trying to teach Loan to play the card game Speed, but Loan did not seize it. She thinks of the little Colette, nicknamed Coco, who suggests that they mix chocolate syrup with milk because the cocoa mixture is no more. Jackie said Grandma Loan lived just five miles away and usually spent the night nowhere but her own house. Even during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Loan stubbornly chose to stay alone. “I thought it was so weird that she did not even give me a hard time coming over,” Jackie said of the oversleep Monday. ‘I’m wondering … if things happen so she’d be there. She would not be able to survive knowing what happened to her grandchildren. ‘The sad mother – who suffered burns and inhaled smoke due to the flame – said one bladder was playing through her mind again. She remembers standing in the foyer of her two-story house and encountering walls of flames. She screamed at the children but did not hear. She only hears the crackling of the fire, the noise of the walls falling apart. She believes her friend, a light sleeper who stayed the night, dragged her away from home. The friend tried to dial 911, but her phone did not work, and then she ran out and slammed the neighbors’ doors. “Of course you ask yourself if you could do something,” Jackie said. ‘The way it was explained to me is just: I’m happy to be alive. There was nothing else for me to do. ‘While Jackie was trying to put together what had happened that night, she said she wanted people to know who her children were – and how important their grandmother was in their lives, an unsung hero and the glue that The family brought the family together held. Jackie’s parents moved to the USA in 1981, where Jackie was born. Loan and her husband, Cau Pham, were refugees in Malaysia before coming to California and later moving to Texas. Jackie’s three children were first generation Americans. Watch this post on Instagram A post shared by Jackie Pham Nguyen (@jaxwin) ‘If it were not for my kids, I think she would not have made it as long as she has,’ Jackie said of Loan and added that Cau passed away several years ago. “They gave her a sense of purpose. She planned everything to pick up their school at 3 p.m. Or she was shopping for us. “I can not say enough about how much my mother was a rock to me and spared my children grace,” Jackie added. Jackie’s associates of technology company Topl and her group at Rice The University, where she will earn an MBA this spring, launched a GoFundMe that raised more than $ 278,000. Currently, the fundraiser is a placeholder for a future foundation in honor of Colette, Edison and Olivia. (Could also have created a GoFundMe on behalf of her brother, Nathan Nguyen, the father of the children.) According to her, all her children were very different from ‘little people’. Firstborn Olivia was witty and sarcastic, and loved skiing and listening. to Queen, Journey and other classical rock music. “She’s a very old soul – stuck in this high school body,” Jackie said. “She’s going to tell me what songs are about. Anything she was curious about, she would dive into. Every song, she reads the lyrics, looks at the history, the orchestra members. She could have been on Jeopardy or some sort of trivia. ‘The mother and daughter shared a special bond; both were the oldest in their families. “She was such a good big sister,” Jackie said. ‘It was a love-hate relationship [being the oldest child]. It’s a burden. This is another way she and I told each other. Edison had just turned 8 in November and was a sweet, gentle boy who loved art and painting, and was terrified of others’ moods. Jackie said Edison was slightly autistic and struggled with social tact, but he was also incredibly considerate. “He always felt like I was sad, if I was stressed, or that I was worried. He just walked in on me – my eight-year-old! ” I would ask him, ‘Are you happy, boy? Do you have a good day? “The things we say to each other a lot were, ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy,’ ‘Jackie said. “If you spent a moment with him, you just knew he had such a warm heart.” Colette, at the age of 5, was a girl child and defended herself – especially when she made videos for TikTok. She even made and presented a PowerPoint show for Jackie’s birthday, with a slide that read, “Top 5 Reasons Why I Love Mom.” “She was constantly dancing and talking to herself, as if she were in a live show,” Jackie said. “She’s not going to accept her birth order. There was no way to beat and bully anyone around her anyway. ‘But she was also very loving and affectionate and always hugged her mother or held her hand. “Even when she looks at you, she looks longingly and deep into your eyes, it’s lovely,” Jackie said. Jackie said she wants the GoFundMe money to go to matters related to the performing and visual arts, raising awareness of autism and reading and reading. literacy – themes that directly speak to who her children were as human beings. “They are amazing little people and they would have grown up to be amazing, to really contribute and make a difference,” she said. ‘This is the legacy I was able to do for them. This is the kindness they might have done if they could have lived their lives. Read more at The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Send it here to The Daily Beast Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.