Hull fire tragedy: Neighbours beaten back by flames as grandmother cries for help

Anna and Victor Crowther had been sleeping in their first-floor front bedroom when their terrace home was engulfed in smoke and flames.

Mrs Crowther, 46, screamed “help me” from the bedroom window as flames took hold at the property in Montrose Street in Hull early on Saturday.

Neighbours placed a ladder up to the bedroom in an attempt to rescue the couple, but the window was blown out before they could get to them.

Mother-of-three and bakery worker Mrs Crowther and her husband, 48, who was a caravan cleaner, died inside the house.

The structure of the building was so damaged by the flames that when fire crews went inside the stairs collapsed.

Her children, Samantha Carter, 28, and Darrel Carter, 26, came to view the burnt-out property yesterday.

Miss Carter said: “We are heartbroken.

“They were such lovely people, they lived for their grandchildren. They were so loving. We can’t believe they are gone.

“Victor was our stepfather but we called him dad and he looked after us, and treated us like we were his own.”

The pair are comforting their younger brother Jamie, 25, Miss Carter’s son Dillon, three, and Mr Carter’s daughter Chenille, four, as they come to terms with the tragedy.

Father-of-one Danny Draper, 28, a tree surgeon who lives opposite the fire scene, said: “I could hear Anna screaming out of the window. The fire was at the back of the house.

“We got the ladder there but before I could go up the window popped.

“Anna had been at the small window at the top screaming but the entire frame just blew out.

“Then we didn’t hear anything, the screaming stopped. There was thick, black smoke all over the street.

“I went up the ladder but it was too hot. I managed to kick the porch door open and was trying to get in the second when the fire brigade arrived.”

Fifteen firefighters from Humberside Fire and Rescue Service battled to bring the flames under

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