The father of a little boy who's fighting for his life returned to the scene of a horrific fire Thursday -- the Burnaby apartment building where on Monday night he made an agonizing decision.
Murray Peng came home on Thursday for a photo of his eight-year-old son Joshua. He wanted to remember what the boy looked like before he was badly burned in the blaze.
"It's heartbreaking you know. I keep thinking of my son," he said.
Peng said he heard the fire alarm and woke up his wife and two sons.
"I saw a woman screaming in the hallway and she said there was a big fire downstairs. I said 'there is fire, get out get out.' Everything was in panic," he said.
And, in that panic, he lost track of his family. They went down a fire escape.
"I pushed the door open and it was completely dark. The heavy smoke hit me and I could not breathe. I knew they were down there -- I was screaming: 'come out, this is the wrong way!'"
His wife and oldest son came back up. Joshua didn't.
"My wife said 'Joshua! Joshua!' I got to make a choice to take my eldest son and my wife out first or go down to get Joshua," he said.
He chose his wife and oldest son, then and tried to go back for Joshua
"I just couldn't get in. I was begging every firefighter I saw, every one of them, I said please save my son. They got him out and he was totally unconscious," said Peng.
Joshua was rushed to Vancouver Children's Hospital with burns to most of his body. His father said the boy is currently on life support and in a coma.
"If he was awake he might be in great pain. He's still too small to bear that pain," he said.
Peng is grateful for the doctors and a neighbour, 19-year-old Ravi Nath, who was badly burned trying to save Joshua.
"He must be very, very brave," said Peng.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Shannon Paterson.
