The smoke clears, and family remains

A little girl is healing after almost dying in a May 2 fire in Racine

By David Steinkraus
Journal Times

Monday, December 24, 2007 8:44 PM CST

RACINE — Makaylee Smith doesn’t remember the day. She’s 5, doesn’t talk much, just shakes her head in the negative when asked about the day when her home caught fire and she was carried out not breathing.

It was May 2 when smoke filled the house at 912 Birth St. and Makaylee’s mom, Lucy Blake, 25, was wakened by neighbors. She works nights at the Aurora Medical Center in Kenosha, had come home and taken her son to school, and had fallen asleep while watching TV with her younger daughter.

“When I first woke up — they kicked open the door — and I thought I was dreaming,” Blake said late last week. “There was just like this narrow little shine of light.”

She had grown up in that house, but smoke made it unfamiliar. “It was so pitch black I couldn’t find a doorway. I couldn’t find anything.”

She made it outside to discover that she was missing a child. The 2-year-old was there. Makaylee wasn’t. Neighbors had to restrain her from going back inside.

Firefighters did, and one carried Makaylee out. By the time the ambulance left she had a pulse, but her injuries were much more severe than some smoke inhalation.

Makaylee spent about two months at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Blake said. There were severe burns on her left leg which required skin grafts. Those were followed by a couple of infections, one with MRSA — methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.

At first after she came home, Blake said, Makaylee didn’t like her injured leg. But by midsummer she had adjusted and wore shorts or Capri pants without self-consciousness. Now she’s very protective of the leg, and is conscientious about applying lotion to prevent the skin from drying out.

Her mind is healing, too.

Sometimes Makaylee’s dreams are bad, but not as often now. “She used to wake up just screaming and crying,” Blake said. “She used to have dreams that she didn’t come out of the house.”

The family came out of the fire with a set of tables and little else. There was no insurance on the Birch Street house, Blake said. “We went back to look around, but people had stolen things.”

Gone was the computer with all the family pictures.

Gone were cast-iron skillets and other housewares used only a couple of times a year and not missed until they’re wanted.

But for this Christmas, what they have is Makaylee.

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