Giovanna Cabrera ‘hero’ Houston mom dies with baby in arms after running back in burning home after managing to save her two other children. Cause of fire remains mystery.
A Texas mother and her 1-year-old son were killed in a house fire in Houston, Saturday, but not before the ‘hero’ mom managed to pull her two older children from the flames.
Giovanna Cabrera, 31, rescued her 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter from the flames, only to race back in the burning inferno in a bid to rescue her third child, a 1-year-old, the Houston Fire Department said.
But it was not to be.
‘It’s still surreal…’
A search of the gutted house led to firefighters finding the mother and her one year old son, Gabriel dead inside.
‘She had him in her arms like the baby so like I know she tried. I know if she could’ve…she would have made it out,’ her sister Giselle Bueno told KTRK.
‘It’s still surreal. Like, I feel like she’s just somewhere else,’ the grieving sister told KPRC. ‘Like I’m going to see her later on. This is, feels like just the house burned. Not, not, nothing happened to my sister or the baby.’
In the aftermath of the blaze which suddenly erupted Saturday around 5am, the home was completely charred.
Crews said they found ‘heavy fire conditions’ upon arriving at the scene Saturday morning.
Cause of house fire remains under investigation
One neighbor said she could hear children screaming in Spanish for help. ‘I heard banging on the door and kids crying for help,’ Savannah Hernandez told KHOU. ‘They are little kids, and you just never know what could happen. They were barefooted.’
The surrounding community has rallied to help her two surviving children. A GoFundme fundraiser had raised just on $30K by Monday evening, with funds to be used to provide clothing and other necessities for the children, as well as funeral costs.
‘It is really nice to see how important she was and how everyone sees her as she was, because she was a hero,’ Bueno told KTRK.
While it’s unclear what sparked the deadly fire, Houston firefighters will walk around the neighborhood Tuesday to hand out safety tips and talk with residents about having operating smoke detectors, home escape plans and fire prevention.
An investigation into the fire is ongoing. The cause of the fire has not been released.
