Daren Dixon fled the burning home believing that his stepchildren, niece and wife pregnant with their unborn child, had managed to escape the flames.

But it was only when he crawled out of the house and began screaming for the women and children that he realised they were still trapped inside.

Dixon said he turned to go back into the inferno, but that was when the roof of the house collapsed.

Dixon suffered burns. He said it should have been him to die instead of the victims. The family lived on the top floor of a house at Bally Junction, Mc Bean, Couva.

The ground floor housed a business called SSM Enterprises. The building is owned by Ashmead Ali, who lives in Florida in the United States.

Dixon said he was awakened by two of the children telling him that the house was on fire.

’The two little boys were sleeping in the front (bedroom) and they get up and said look the house on fire,’ Dixon said.

Dixon said he told his wife Vanessa Chinapoo and the two boys to go outside while he went back to get the rest of the children.

’I went to the back (of the house) but the entire house was already thick with smoke, I could hardly breathe,’ he said. He said he realised that the burglar proofing on the backdoor of the house was locked so he went back to the front of the house, calling for the others but got no answer.

’I kept calling and calling but nobody answered so I thought that they were already outside so I crept out a side door that we usually have open and got out,’ he said.

Dixon said when he got out the house, he realised that his family were not outside. He said he thought that they had gone downstairs only to realise that they were still all in the house.

’I tried to get back in but the roof of the house collapsed. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what she did but I told them to go out side,’ he said.