Laura van Casteren (25) from Made decided a year ago, after the tragic murder of her mother, to completely change course. She started again, under the Spanish sun in Valencia. But fate struck again. Her entire apartment burned out through a broken fan. All her things and Dwensen are his way and at the time of the fire she was not insured. “I thought, I can’t get such a blow again.”
“I was sleeping and woke up by a huge heat in the room,” says Laura while she is still not recovered from the shock. “I grabbed my glasses and then saw an orange-yellow glow through the crack of the door.” She immediately realized that something was wrong and took action. “I saw the fire in the mirror. So I immediately woke up my friend. We had to leave.”
The fan that stood in the living room turned out to have received a short circuit at night and slapped apart. The 25-year-old tried to fight fire in an attempt to save her house, but small fires spread through the apartment everywhere. If the flames hit meters high against the ceiling, Laura can’t do anything anymore.
“You feel desperate, very powerless, I could only scream.”
She fled the house with her friend Anthony. “You feel desperate, very powerless, I could only scream,” she says emotionally. The fire brigade came after ten minutes, but for Laura it felt like an eternity. “My friend was not wearing anything when we were outside and I could only watch how everything went in flames.”
“I bought this apartment in Valencia to really create a new beginning,” she says. With her mother’s money, supplemented with her own hard -earned savings, she bought a small apartment in the Spanish city. A year ago she finally moved to Spain.
Five years ago, Laura’s mother, Gea Godwaldt, was robbed of life in her own house. Laura’s stepfather committed femicide (the intentional killing of a woman or girl, in which her gender plays a role, ed.) And then decided to get out of life herself. Laura’s mother was taken away from her, the whole village is in mourning.
Laura and Anthony were taken to the hospital, both by the ventilation. “In the ambulance I thought it was not too bad, I was still stiff with adrenaline. But when I watched in the hospital in the mirror, I saw that I was completely black with smoke.” Her boyfriend was on the ventilation for eight hours and rose in the past third -degree burns. The 25-year-old himself comes off without a cracks.
“I couldn’t forgive myself that I had not arranged that insurance.”
At the time of the fire, Laura was still negotiating about her premium and she was not insured. There is nothing left of the apartment, her things and the Dendens to her mother. “I can’t get such a blow again,” she thought to herself. “I couldn’t forgive myself that I had not arranged that insurance in one go. I saw all the money that Mama worked very hard for.”
She doesn’t get stuck. Her friends get Laura somewhat on top again. After a few days she goes back to work. There is also one crowdfunding started. “Now we will continue step by step. It is really bizarre how much support I have had in the past week.”
Although Laura’s house burned out completely, the building is still structurally in order. “There is no danger of collapse, so now we are busy cleaning and building. Hopefully the damage will not be too bad.”
