Gosnells fire 'hero' tells of torment over lost child

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A YOUNG man has spoken of his bittersweet heroic act at rescuing a grandmother from a house inferno but the torment of not being able to save her grandson.

More than a week after fire ripped through the Corfield St ,Gosnells house, killing six-year-old Zacery Ryan and seriously injuring his grandmother, 20-year-old Michael has described how he and his father acted on instinct when they ran into a burning house believing someone may be trapped.

Police and firefighters have praised the efforts of the men, but Michael yesterday revealed tht he had endured sleepless nights since the incident and had found it difficult to reconcile that he had been unable to save little Zac.

It was 8.45am on Thursday, August 27 when Michael and his father Rob, 47, who did not want their surnames published, had been driving past and noticed smoke billowing from the roof tiles.

Immediately, the pair pulled over and rushed to the front door, kicking it in to find an unconscious woman slumped in the foyer.

``She wasn't moving at first or responding at all so we didn't know what to think,'' Michael told
The Sunday Times.

``There was that much smoke in the room that you couldn't see a couple of feet in the house.

``So we've checked on her again and she's looked up at us. The look she gave us was unbelieveable..and me and my Dad have just gripped her and dragged her out.''

But as soon as they had plucked her to safety, Michael and Rob realised Zac was still inside.

As Rob grabbed a garden hose to douse flames licking out of the bedroom window, Michael prised open the locked back security screen and crawled inside the smoke-filled house.

``I couldn't go in very far. I couldn't see bugger all. It was really hot in there,'' Michael said.

``I was just thinking of getting the young fella out, you know.''

Michael said the heat from the fire, which was concentrated to the bedroom, was so intense that the flames licked through the melting, contorted glass panel.

``There was flames roaring out a bedroom window and he (Dad) ran and grabbed the garden hose...and put the fire out,'' he said.

``As soon as he's started hosing, trying to put the fire out, the window has just shattered.''

By the time firefighters arrived, Rob had subdued the bedroom fire with a garden hose.

Michael said he had spoken to relatives of the family, since the tragedy who had thanked the pair for their courage.

``They're just happy that we saved at least one person,'' he said. ``I wanted to speak with them. I know what they would be going through because of what I felt after it happened.

``I feel sorrow for what happened to the young fella, but we couldn't change that. But at least the older lady is alright now.

``Seriously, I think she deserves a medal more than anyone, cos when we got her, her hands and her face were like black like charcoal. She'd been burnt trying to get to the kid and she's only just made it to the front door.

``I'm just happy that she's alive. At least there is one person that was saved instead of both of them perishing in such a bad way.

``Both me and my Dad just acted on instinct. We just did what we thought any person would do.

``It's very hard to experience something like that...I just did what I thought was right.''

The woman remains in Royal Perth Hospital with serious burns and smoke inhalation.

Detective First Class Constable Connor Magee praised the efforts of the two men.

``It's an absolute tragedy and it could have been worse if it wasn't for them,'' Det Magee said.

``It's an heroic effort. At the end of the day, it could have been two people (dead) instead of one.''


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Emerald City the country's most affordable

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IT has been dubbed the country's most expensive place to live but Sydney is in fact Australia's most affordable city.

A report on property in the country's capital cities names Sydney as the place with the most suburbs where the average property price falls under half a million dollars.

Of 1225 suburbs across Australia where the median house price is below $500,000, Sydney has 298, almost half of the city's total suburbs, according to the report commissioned by the National Australia Bank.

"This result is a little surprising, given that Sydney is the nation's most expensive housing market," said the report's author, Cameron Kusher of research firm RP Data.

"It does show that many suburbs still exist where affordable property is available."

General sales manager at McGrath Real Estate Matt Lahood said many of Sydney's first-home buyers trying to get their foot on the property ladder had unrealistic expectations.

"A lot of the buyers coming into the market want to kick off into the parkside and beachside areas," Mr Lahood said. "The perception of their dream area ends up not being the end reality."

Raine & Horne chief executive Angus Raine said the city was made up of a "series of tribes", some of which carried greater "snob value" than others.

"The second thing people ask you in Sydney is, 'Where do you live?'," Mr Raine said.

The Sydney suburbs picked out as the best places to buy houses were the western suburbs of Granville, Guildford, Toongabbie and Lidcombe, and Sutherland in the city's south.

Inner-city Ultimo, Rushcutters Bay and Chippendale along with Crows Nest on the lower north shore were the best places to buy units.

Elsewhere in the country, the NAB RP Data report, "Where to Buy under $500,000", names top suburbs as Banyo, Zillmere, Keperra, Coopers Plains and Salisbury in Brisbane; Werribee, Fawkner, Reservoir, Preston and Seddon in Melbourne; and Armadale, Kenwick and Cannington in Perth.

Sydney mother Kellie Denning, 34, and her husband, Shannon, 35, recently bought a $450,000 three-bedroom home on a 1000sqm block with a swimming pool in Greystanes in Sydney's west.

The couple had moved from the Blacktown area and believed trendy city areas such as Bondi were overpriced.

"We know the area well," Mrs Denning said. "My husband lived here until he was 28."

Mrs Denning said it took her husband 45 minutes to get to work in the city. "It's nothing ... (people) think because it's out west it's too far or not a nice area, but this is one of the nicest areas you could come across."

Housing Industry Association chief economist Harley Dale said he believed the results were attributed to Sydney spending so many years as the weakest housing market in the country. "You still have a lot of places in Sydney where the home value now is still lower than in 2003 and 2004 at the end of the boom," he said.

"I think it is conceivable it will stay that way for some time. We are not on the cusp of a house price boom ... you could be coming up with a situation with lots of affordable suburbs for some while to come."

Ray White chairman Brian White said Sydney was the place with the greatest mix of cheaper units amid highly priced properties, and there had been a clear move in the past 10 years towards families who were prepared to raise their children in a unit so that they could live in their desired area.

"You get stories of people prepared to pack their families into apartments in Bondi," Mr White said yesterday.


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