"I feel so sad, I almost pass away."
The pain was almost too much to bear for the mother and grandmother of five of the seven victims of Thursdays devastating apartment building fire on Branch Street in Lowell.
"Everybody’s dead except them, why?" a translator said on her behalf.
She and her husband escaped from their third floor apartment and saved their 14- and 11-year-old grandsons. Her son, Torn Sak, his girlfriend Ellen Vuong and three of the couple’s children were killed in the fire – 12-year-old Anthony, 9-year-old Ryan and 7-year-old Sayuri, whom just celebrated her birthday last Friday with presents and fireworks, according to Sak’s Facebook page.
Sak's brother Thearan Sak said, “I’m sure that whatever caught on fire, it caught the fireworks and it made his unit even more, yeah it made it worse.”
Sak’s brother Thearan says his family is devastated.
"Everybody in my family is broken right now. I was earlier, but I can’t right now because I’ve got to take care of my nephews, I’ve got to make sure their situation because they don’t know what happened to their parents right now," he said.
Also killed in the fire was 38-year-old Tina Christakos.
"She was a happy-go-lucky kid, she had one daughter, Felicia, and she loved her," Tina’s uncle Bob Christakos said
While Tina’s boyfriend Chin Bun escaped, he says their roommate and long-time friend, 76-year-old Bob Down, did not.
"He was a good old man, he helped everybody, he was a work hard man," Bun said.
Bun says he tried to get Tina, Bob and everyone out, but couldn’t.
"I don’t know, I was trying to go back and they wouldn’t let me back in, the fire was too intense, too hot," said Bun, "I thought she went the back door, but I looked outside and couldn’t find her."
Tina Christakos' relatives said Down took her in about a decade ago and the two had been best friends ever since. They say she wouldn't have left him behind in the fire.
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