An ail­ing grand­moth­er and four oth­er mem­bers of her fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing two chil­dren, were res­cued yes­ter­day by three coura­geous po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing a mid-morn­ing fire at their More­an Street, Pic­ton Hill, Laven­tille, home. When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, an emo­tion­al Ber­nice Nel­son, 61, called on se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers to com­mend the hero­ics of the young of­fi­cers in sav­ing her fam­i­ly and house. "Peo­ple in Laven­tille don't like the po­lice but not me," Nel­son said. "These of­fi­cers went be­yond their du­ties to save us. My fam­i­ly and I are tru­ly grate­ful to them," she added. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 10 am of­fi­cers of the Pic­ton Po­lice Post no­ticed smoke com­ing from Nel­son's house which is lo­cat­ed sev­er­al me­tres from the post. Cpl Damien Arthur, PCs Bri­an Phillips and Ja­mal Young, armed with fire ex­tin­guish­ers from the post, ran to the scene in an at­tempt to douse the fire.

Nel­son said: "We were locked in­side. The kitchen was on fire and we could not get out of the house, "I am a di­a­bet­ic and I have back prob­lems and arthri­tis so I could bare­ly walk." On reach­ing the scene the of­fi­cers were forced to break down her front door to gain ac­cess to the house. Af­ter gain­ing en­try, they man­aged to help the fam­i­ly to evac­u­ate their hum­ble two-bed­room dwelling. Nel­son's daugh­ters-Abi­gail Shep­pard, 24, De­bra Cox, 38 and her grand­chil­dren Shakiel, 4 and Shaki­ra, 13-all man­aged to es­cape the or­deal with mi­nor in­juries. Shep­pard and Cox were rushed to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where they re­mained ward­ed up to late yes­ter­day and were re­ceiv­ing treat­ment for smoke in­hala­tion.

Af­ter res­cu­ing the fam­i­ly, the law­men, who wore no pro­tec­tive gear, man­aged to ex­tin­guished the blaze with­in an hour with the as­sis­tance of a crew from CEPEP who were work­ing at a near­by job site. In an in­ter­view at the house yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Con­sta­ble Ja­mal Young said he be­lieved his ac­tions were part of his du­ties as a po­lice of­fi­cer. "It's all in a day's work. I'll do it again in a heart­beat," he added. When con­tact­ed in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, IATF head, Supt Carl­ton Al­leyne, praised the work of his of­fi­cers. Up to late yes­ter­day, the cause of the fire re­mained un­known. Fire of­fi­cers are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. It is be­lieved the fire orig­i­nat­ed in the kitchen, as most of the dam­age oc­curred there, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said.