Mum's guilt at causing 90 per cent burns to daughter's face after leaving a cigarette in her baby's bedroom
Filed under: Teenagers
Rex
Every time Julie Minter looks at her daughter she will always be reminded of a terrible tragedy – and that she is to blame.
For when Julie's daughter Terri Calvesbert was 22 months old, Julie accidentally left a burning cigarette in her room, causing a fire that left the little girl with 90 per cent burns.
Terri's nose, hair, hands and ears were so badly burned that firefighters mistook her for a black plastic doll.
For more than a decade, Julie has lived with the guilt, but for the first time she is now able to talk about the accident which changed both hers and her daughter's lives forever.
Julie and Terri, now 15, have opened their hearts in a TV documentary called Extraordinary People: The Girl With 90% Burns, which will be shown on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm.
Julie, 35, told The Sun: "No one can make me feel worse than I already do.
i
I regret it and relive it every second of my life. She suffered all this, all because of me.
i
Terri is one of a handful of people in the world to survive such extensive burns to her body, requiring more than 40 skin grafts.
The accident left Julie estranged from her daughter for 10 years and suicidal with guilt over the injuries she could hardly bear to look at.
She has few friends and no longer has contact with her own parents, who still regularly see Terri. But despite what happened, Terri has forgiven her.
"She could so easily hate me and never want to see me again," said Julie.
i
She texted me the other night saying that I have got nothing to feel sorry about, that it wasn't my fault and I'll always be her mum.
i
"I don't feel like I deserve her. She's amazing and I take my strength from her."
Julie had separated from Terri's dad, factory worker Paul Calvesbert, just two months before the 1998 fire. Julie was in their ground-floor flat in Ipswich with Terri, who would not go to sleep.
She recalled: "She was normally such a brilliant sleeper, so I didn't understand why she wouldn't settle.
"I never smoked in the flat, but this one night I did. I don't know why to this day I did such a stupid thing.
"I put the cigarette down in Terri's bedroom while talking to her and walked out.
"She was still crying and I remember thinking, 'I will leave her and she will tire herself out and go to sleep.' I did not intentionally leave the cigarette there."
But as Terri's screams got worse Julie realised there was something wrong and went back to discover the room was on fire and filled with black smoke.
She said: "I just panicked. I couldn't see anything but smoke and flames.
i
I dialled 999, I was screaming but I couldn't even think what the word was for fire. I said: 'My girl's in the bedroom... there's a... fire.'
i
"So many people have said to me since that I should have gone in there and got her. But I panicked."
Terri was transferred to a burns unit at Chelmsford Hospital. She spent six months in hospital after the fire before coming home to live with her dad. He gave up his job to look after her.
Julie then lost contact with Terri for about eight years. The pair finally had an emotional reunion four years ago.
Julie said: "When we met it was like we'd never been apart. We held each other and hugged each other.
"Since then, we stopped contact again for a bit but we've been texting each other again lately. In fact, we were texting each other for about four hours last night."
The last time she saw Terri was around two years ago.
In the film, Terri admits she can forgive her mum for the fire, but finds it hard to forget that she saw so little of her when she was a young child.
i
Sometimes I do look back and think that she shouldn't have been smoking in the house anyway," Terri said.
i
"It's not really her fault though. It's no one's fault."
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