The Daily Beast
‘This Is Some Crazy Nightmare’: Mom recounts the last moments with her three children who died in Texas lack of energy
Courtesy of Jackie NguyenOn last Monday, Jackie Pham Nguyen was grateful that he still had power in his Texas home. Her children – Colette, 5, Edison, 8 and Olivia, 11 – played in the snow that morning before going in to eat hot chocolate and leftover food from the Lunar New Year celebrations. For hours, they played Bananagrams and other board games. Their grandmother, Loan Le, joined them. The 75-year-old woman, who had lost heat in her own home in the midst of state power cuts, faced icy roads to shelter at her home in Sugar Land. These three brothers died tragically in the deep freeze in Texas. It didn’t have to be that way. “Honestly, it was an incredible day. We had lunch at home, we went out together. The kids were excited that they didn’t have a school because it was President’s Day, and we kind of had the news running in the background all the time, ”said Jackie. “Throughout the day, I was grateful that we were among the 10-15% of Houston who had energy.” When the lights went out at 5 pm, the family was not intimidated. They huddled together to keep warm, Jackie lit the fireplace and they kept playing. At around 9:30 pm or 10:00 pm, Jackie put the kids to bed upstairs and went to sleep in their room downstairs. Four hours later, the house was on fire. Jackie said she doesn’t remember much about that night, except that when she woke up in a hospital bed, a fireman informed her that the children – and her mother – were gone. “After that, I couldn’t breathe. Even now, I can’t believe it. This is a crazy nightmare and I will 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 occurs amid extreme weather and a deadly energy crisis across the state. Initial reports on social media suggested that hell may have started with the fire that the family lit up for warmth. Dozens of people in Texas – and across America – died in last week’s winter storms. The cold spell wreaked havoc especially in the Lone Star State, where millions of people lost electricity, heat and water by cause of state infrastructure failures. Among the dead are Cristian Pineda, 11, who died of suspected hypothermia in his freezing cold Conroe mobile home. The sixth grader and his family came from the United States to Honduras two years ago. Cristian’s mother, Maria, filed a $ 100 million wrongful death lawsuit against the state’s utility network operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the utility company public services, Entergy Corporation. Houston’s mother, Etenesh Mersha, and 7-year-old daughter, Rakeb Shalemu, died of carbon monoxide poisoning after desperately seeking heating in their car. Andy Anderson, a Vietnam veteran in Crosby, died of hypothermia while trying to start a generator; he depended on an oxygen machine, which doesn’t work without electricity. There are many tragic stories of losses and probably more to come.Vanessa Kon, an aunt of the Nguyen children, told The Daily Beast that she believed the authorities should be prepared for the power grid disaster. Courtesy of Jackie Nguyen “We don’t know what happened,” said Kon. “We don’t know why the lights went out like that. The city should be prepared for this. Why was the power turned off? If the power hadn’t been turned off, it wouldn’t have happened. ”For his part, Jackie has not even begun to consider charges of negligence against Texas energy operators. “I’m sort of in crisis mode sorting right now,” Jackie told us about a long-stay hotel. “I’m just waiting for what people have to say.” ‘People Are Greedy’: The absurd electrical bills hitting Texans Jackie said he spent two days in a burn unit at a hospital before leaving against doctors’ advice. For several days, she still smelled of smoke from her burning house, until she finally found a hotel with running water. “I don’t remember much about that night,” she said. “I suffered a lot of smoke inhalation. This impaired part of my brain cognition. I’m really hoping that a lot of it will come back. Because I want to be able to put it all together. Jackie remembers letting Olivia talk about Zoom with her friends from a summer camp in New York that night, despite wanting to conserve energy in their electronic devices before interruptions. “I am grateful to have lessened it a little, so she could have it. So that your friends could have that memory, ”said Jackie. She remembers the kids trying to teach Loan to play the Speed card game, but Loan was not recovering. She thinks of little Colette, nicknamed Coco, suggesting that they mix chocolate syrup with milk because the cocoa mixture has run out. Jackie said that Grandma Loan lived just five miles away and usually never spent the night elsewhere, except in her own home. Even during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Loan stubbornly chose to be alone. “I thought it was so weird that she didn’t even bother me for coming,” Jackie said of the pajama party on Monday. “I kind of wonder … if things went this way for her to be there. She would not have been able to survive knowing what happened to her grandchildren. ”The grieving mother – who suffered burns and smoke inhalation from the fire – said that a point is repeating herself in her mind. She remembers being in the foyer of her two-story house and finding walls of flame. She screamed for the children, but did not hear them. She just heard the crackle of the fire, the noise of the walls disintegrating. She believes that her friend, a light sleeper who spent that night, dragged her out of the house. The friend tried to call 911, but her phone was not working, so she ran out and knocked on the neighbors’ door. “Obviously, as a parent, you wonder if you could have done something,” said Jackie. “The way it was explained to me is simply: I am lucky to be alive. There was nothing else for me to do. “While Jackie tries to piece together what happened that night, she said she wants people to know who her children were – and how important her grandmother was in their lives, an unsung hero and the glue that held the family together. Jackie’s parents moved to the United States in 1981 from Vietnam, where Jackie was born. Loan and her husband, Cau Pham, were refugees in Malaysia before coming to California and then moving to Texas. Jackie’s three children were first generation Americans. See this Instagram post A post shared by Jackie Pham Nguyen (@jaxwin) “If it weren’t for my kids, I don’t think she would have survived that long,” said Jackie of Loan, adding that Cau died several years ago. “They gave her a sense of purpose. She programmed everything for the collection of the 3 hours in the school. Or she did some shopping for us. “” I can’t say enough about how much my mother was a rock for me and a saving grace for my children, “added Jackie. Jackie’s coworkers at the technology company Topl and her colleague at Rice The university, where she is taking an MBA this spring, launched a GoFundMe that raised more than $ 278,000. At the moment, fundraising is a space reserved for a future foundation to honor Colette, Edison and Olivia. (Kon also created a GoFundMe on behalf of his brother, Nathan Nguyen, the children’s father.) All of his children, she said, were totally different “little humans”. Firstborn Olivia was witty and sarcastic and loved to ski and listen to Queen, Journey and other classic rock songs. “She’s an old soul – trapped in the body of a high school student,” said Jackie. “She will tell me what the songs are about. Whatever she was curious about, she would dive. Each song, she reads the lyrics, looks at the history, the members of the band. She could be on Jeopardy or some kind of trivia. ”The mother and daughter shared a special connection; both were the oldest of their families. “She was a good big sister,” said Jackie. “It was a love-hate relationship [being the oldest child]. It’s a burden. It is another way that she and I relate. ”Edison had just turned 8 in November and was a sweet and kind boy who liked art and painting and was strangely in tune with other people’s moods. Jackie said Edison was moderately autistic and struggled with social tact, but he was also extremely considerate. “He could always feel whether I was sad or stressed, or worried. He would just check on me – my 8 year old son! ”“ I asked him, ‘Are you happy, son? Are you having a good day? ‘ The things we say to each other a lot are, ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy,’ ”said Jackie. “If you spent a minute with him, you would know that he had such a warm heart.” Colette, 5, was a female girl and admittedly herself – especially when making videos for TikTok. She even did and presented a PowerPoint show for Jackie’s birthday, with a slide that said, “Five main reasons why I love Mommy.” “She was constantly dancing and talking to herself, like she was at a live show,” said Jackie. “She was not going to accept her birth order. There was no way for someone to beat her and intimidate her in any way. ”But she was also very loving and affectionate, always hugging her mother or holding her hand. “Even when she looks at you, she looks at you longingly and in the back of your eyes, it’s adorable,” said Jackie. Jackie said he wants GoFundMe money to go to causes related to visual and performing arts, autism and reading literacy – topics that speak directly about who his children were as people. “They are incredible little humans and would have grown to be incredible, to really contribute and make a difference,” she said. “This is the legacy that I could do for them. This is the kindness that they would have potentially done if they could have lived their lives. ”Read more at The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Submit to the Daily Beast here. Get our top news in your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. To know more.