Sascha Wil­son

Spe­cial Olympian Dar­rius Gokool, 23, is now home­less.

He was among mem­bers of four fam­i­lies, com­pris­ing 15 peo­ple, who lost their apart­ments dur­ing a fire on Wednes­day at Garth Road, Princes Town.

Gokool, who is hear­ing im­paired, rep­re­sent­ed T&T dur­ing the 2017 Spe­cial Olympics in Aus­tria.

He lived with his par­ents in one of four apart­ments which went up in flames short­ly af­ter 8 am.

Dar­rius’ moth­er, Aruna Mo­hammed, re­called yes­ter­day that she had just made break­fast and was about to take a show­er when her hus­band David Gokool, 63, smelt smoke and went to the back of the build­ing.

He saw the down­stairs apart­ment, which is oc­cu­pied by his two el­der­ly un­cles, on fire and raised an alarm.

On­ly one of his un­cles was at home. He ran out of the apart­ment. Mo­hammed, a house­wife, said, “All I heard, my hus­band bawl­ing fire, fire. I drag my son and run and time I reach out here and turn around, the whole house was in blaz­ing fire.”

She said the ten­ants from the two up­stairs apart­ments al­so ran out. One of those apart­ments was oc­cu­pied by a Venezue­lan fam­i­ly of eight, in­clud­ing three chil­dren, while a woman and her daugh­ter lived in the oth­er one.

Not­ing that her son’s team placed fourth in floor hock­ey at the Olympics, Mo­hammed was thank­ful that his medals and cer­tifi­cates were not de­stroyed.

“He was about to leave to go Rus­sia this year but it did not hap­pen be­cause of the war, so they can­cel. Luck­i­ly, he was not in Rus­sia be­cause they was leav­ing in Feb­ru­ary, so they had to can­cel that,” she said.

How­ev­er, she lament­ed that all they have now is the clothes on their backs.

While they stayed with a friend on Wednes­day night, she was not sure if they will be able to stay there an­oth­er night. Mo­hammed said her hus­band has been re­ceiv­ing dis­abil­i­ty since he suf­fered a heart at­tack and un­der­went surgery to im­plant a pace­mak­er.

She said, “If any­body could help us out, even the peo­ple up­stairs, the ten­ants, we all need the help, every­body need the help right now is not on­ly me, every­body, be­cause every­body lost every­thing, no clothes noth­ing, every­body what they run out with that is all they have so it very hard.”

Mo­hammed’s fam­i­ly can be con­tact­ed at 799-1885.

The cause of the fire is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed but loss­es are es­ti­mat­ed at $1 mil­lion.

Of­fi­cers from the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion, Princes Town and San Fer­nan­do Fire Sta­tions vis­it­ed the scene.