HINGHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - Weeks after a massive fire destroyed a multistory home in Hingham, the mother of the family that lived there is speaking out.
Haley Cutter described for 7NEWS the moment she learned the $3 million home her family had just purchased was burning.
She said she had been on the Cape with her daughter that day when she got the call from a neighbor.
“‘Haley,’ you know, ‘your house is on fire,’ and I could tell from that second that we’re not talking little fire,” she explained.
Cutter’s mind immediately raced to her son, who had been at the home with a babysitter.
11-year-old Colum was able to get out along with the sitter, but not before they ran into a front staircase that was already burning due to the wind-whipped fire.
Both had to use a door by a back staircase to get out, realizing a couple of painters were working upstairs as they escaped. Cutter said Colum and the sitter, named Claire, yelled to warn them.
“(A) firefighter asked him if he saw the painters and he paused and he said ‘no, I didn’t see them, but I heard them running and at that point, I prayed, and Claire and I ran out of the house,'” Cutter said.
She said Colum lost a stuffed monkey he had loved since birth in the fire, and that it proved to be traumatic for him. But, a brand new one later appeared thanks to a mystery person.
“He looked at the monkey, he said ‘he’s a little chunkier than Jojo was, but I’m gonna named him Momo and he’s Jojo’s chunkier little brother.”
Friends started a GoFundMe page to help the family, but Cutter said her family is financially secure. Instead, they looked to spread the outpouring of support they received to others in need.
“We know that we couldn’t say ‘no’ to them and our thought is to take a negative and make it a positive,” Cutter said. “So we have started a fund, The Cut Fire Fund, to support first responders as well as other families that have been impacted by fire.”
Cutter said she has been focused in part on a fire in East Boston two weeks ago that left eight children homeless, and has been working to buy them food, clothes and comfort items, keeping in mind how important that stuffed animal was to her son.
“It’s the little things that matter in times like this,” she told 7NEWS.
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