When firefighters pulled Safyre Terry’s father from the ashes, she was underneath him — buried in his arms and still alive.
It was an early May morning in 2013 when, investigators said, an arsonist set fire to the family’s apartment stairwell in Schenectady, N.Y., not far from Albany. Safyre, then 5, lost her father, her younger sister and two younger brothers in the blaze.
Safyre was severely burned over the majority of her body. She lost the skin on her face, the toes on her left foot, her entire right hand and, later, the rest of her left foot, her aunt said.
“Doctors were just making her comfortable until she passed away,” her aunt and legal guardian, Liz Dolder, 43, told The Washington Post. “She wanted to live.”
Safyre is now 8 and is preparing to celebrate Christmas without her immediate family — and she has asked strangers for help.
Dolder posted a message on Facebook over the weekend asking people to send Christmas cards for Safyre to hang on a card tree.
“Everything is magical,” the aunt said. “I went to Goodwill and bought a Christmas card tree. And she helped me put it up. When we got our first Christmas card, she was so excited. … It was just incredible.”
Read on to learn where you can send a card to Safyre.
And today we celebrate...