FRUITLAND PARK, Fla. – Mike Cox was watching TV at home with his family in their Fruitland Park trailer when he heard the blood-curdling screams from his 6-year-old son’s bedroom. He looked back to see what was happening, only to be met by a wall of roaring flame.
“I’ve never heard a scream like that before from her and him. And then when I looked back, all I could see (were) the flames,” Cox said, recounting the terrifying moment. “But I had, like, a mop bucket here that had some water in it, and I picked and tried throwing it on there, and then went back to go get some more. When I came back, I made it right here and the flames were already up and they singed my hair and I just turned around and ran out and to check on my son.”
His son got out of the trailer, but suffered severe burns.
“I’m picking him up, and he’s just pulling skin because he doesn’t know. And he’s like, ow ow ow. And I, I couldn’t make it stop. I just wanted to take his pain away so he didn’t have to deal with it,” he continued.
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Cox is overcome with emotion thinking about the 6-year-old boy, who is autistic and nonverbal, being in pain.
“He shouldn’t have to go through something like that. That much pain and that much suffering,” Cox said.
Lake County Fire Rescue and the Leesburg Fire Department put out the fire, but the trailer is a complete loss. The fire marshal told Cox it was an electrical fire caused by a fuse box in his son’s bedroom.
“I’ve been here five years. I just paid it off about a year ago. It was ours. I know it wasn’t much, but it was our home. Now we don’t have it. We don’t have anything. I mean, it’s really hard. I’m sleeping in the car and at the hospital because I got nowhere to go,” he said.
Cox’s son is now being treated at UF Health Shands Burn Center in Gainesville.
“My son, he’s got to have surgery tomorrow to have cadaver skin put on him to try to help heal his skin until they can do a skin graft on him. Hopefully, he’s gonna get out soon. But they’re talking, and he’s going to be in there at least a month if not longer, with the surgeries and the like. They don’t know yet. Every day we find out a little bit more, so they don’t know how many surgeries he’s going to have to have, how long he’s going to be in there,” Cox added.
Meanwhile, Cox, his other son, and his 74-year-old father who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease are without a home.
“I don’t think he grasps what has happened. And my other son, he’s just — He’s just, ‘Daddy. Home. Home, home home home. I want to go home.’ And I don’t have a home to bring him to,” Cox stated.
A family friend set up a GoFundMe to support the Cox family through this difficult time.
Those interested in donating can do so here.
Cox also said his son loves Mickey Mouse and Bluey, and currently doesn’t even have a blanket of his own at the hospital.