Three children severely burned

By LINDA GIBSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 13, 2000

TAMPA -- Teri Porter, 44, was just starting dinner Saturday night while her 10-year-old son, Derek, played with two of his relatives in the back yard.

As usual, they made a lot of noise. But then the noise of play turned into screams of pain.

As Porter ran outside, the three children came running toward the house. Berna Robinson, a next-door neighbor, later described them as "scared, peeling and screaming."

Derek, 10-year-old Dorsey Guest and Courtney Smith, 9, of Pinellas Park, had decided to play campfire in the 6-foot-by-8-foot wooden playhouse behind Derek's home at 205 W Fern St., in the Seminole Heights neighborhood. "They call it their clubhouse," his mother said later at the hospital.

They gathered some rocks and arranged them in one corner, piled some rags in the middle, doused it with a flammable liquid and put a cigarette lighter to it. "There was a flash fire," said Capt. Bill Wade of Tampa Fire Rescue.

The three children suffered second- and third-degree burns over about a third of their bodies, he said.

Porter pulled them inside and called 911 at 7:32 p.m. The dispatcher told her to put wet towels on the children. While she did, neighbor Scott Sexton fetched a garden hose from across the street and put out the fire in the playhouse.

Firefighters and ambulances arrived five minutes after Porter's call. They took them to Tampa General Hospital, where they were listed in critical condition. All three were upgraded to serious condition late Saturday night.

The children play together nearly every weekend at one or the other's house. "Derek was telling them to calm down, it wasn't that bad," she said. "They're all worried about the others. Each one is asking about the others."

Derek was burned on his legs, arms, hands and face, she said. He will need skin grafts, doctors told her. Information on the other children wasn't available.

Derek is a fifth-grader at Seminole Heights School. He'll probably be in the hospital at least a week, his mother said.

Porter said she had talked to Derek before about the dangers of playing with fire. "I try to be a cool mom and give him leeway," she said. "But now I'll be afraid to let him out of my sight."

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