Here's what happened to me yesterday

[Valigator]

DAVIE
Christmas-tree fire injures Davie woman
A Davie woman was hospitalized in urgent trauma care with serious burns after her Christmas tree went up in flames.
BY BREANNE GILPATRICK
bgilpatrick@MiamiHerald.com

Becky Watson and her fiancé were just days away from celebrating their first Christmas in their Davie home.

But Watson was rushed to the hospital Friday with serious burns after neighbors said their Christmas tree caught fire, and she narrowly escaped as flames rapidly scorched the inside of their home at 6230 SW 38th St.

No one else was injured. Her fiancé, Justin Collison, wasn't home at the time of the blaze.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation by the state fire marshal. Witnesses said Watson told them she was inside the house about 3 p.m. when she suddenly noticed that the tree was on fire. After she tried to douse the fire with a glass of water, the tree, set up near the front door in the living room, went up in flames, said Mary Mans, who lives across the street.

Mans said she was sitting in front of her home when she saw Watson emerge from the smoke blanketing the front of the house. Watson -- whose skin was peeling and her head bleeding -- then made her way across the street, eventually collapsing in the grass in front of Mans' home.

''I can't even believe she got out of the house the way that house looked,'' Mans said. ``It looked like something from a movie.''

Watson was taken to Broward General Medical Center and later airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

And she was in urgent/trauma care there as of late Friday night.

Neighbors said she suffered burns to her arms, face and the back of her head but was conscious as she was transported to the hospital.

Mans said she thinks the flames near the door burned her as she tried to escape.

But throughout the ordeal, Mans said Watson was focused on one thing: rescuing her dog, Bo. While she lay on the grass, she kept screaming for someone to go inside and rescue Bo, Mans said.

''She was worried about the dog, and not realizing how badly she was burned,'' Mans said.

Mark Cavanagh was working nearby when he heard the screaming. He then went into the house to try and rescue her dog. He said he managed to enter through the back door of the house but could barely see inside because of the ''thick, black smoke,'' saying the flames made it feel like ``you were getting burned yourself.''

''You couldn't even see in front of you,'' he said.

In the end, Cavanagh smashed the home's windows, but was pushed back by the heat and smoke. Neighbors theorized the dog was able to escape through a window. The dog eventually ended up unharmed in Mans' front yard.

''They love that dog,'' Mans said, as Bo played behind her.

Watson and Collison rent the home from Collison's mother Valerie Parkhurst. And they had moved in about six months ago, Parkhurst said.

Although firefighters arrived within minutes and extinguished the blaze, the front of the house was left charred, with the fire melting the front window frame.

''The house is pretty well damaged,'' Davie Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Brian Nolte said. ``It's uninhabitable right now.

(please pray for Becky) I know she has a tough road of recovery ahead of her...)