A MOTHER whose five-year-old daughter and husband, 41 were killed in a dramatic blaze in their holiday home in the province of Cádiz has passed away in hospital.
Carmen Navarro, who worked for the 112 emergency hotline, suffered burns to between 80% and 90% of her body when a fatal combination of an anti-mosquito candle left alight overnight, a paper tablecloth, a wooden porch and a plastic roof turned the family's summer house in El Palmar – a tied hamlet of Vejer de la Frontera – into a burning trap.
Carmen's husband José Corrientes Humanes, who worked for Airbus in Sevilla as a military aeroplane engineer, died from smoke inhalation when he tried to rescue his daughter Julia from her bedroom.
José and Julia were found in each other's arms by firefighters – he already dead and Julia in cardiac arrest.
They managed to restart the little girl's pulse, but she died the next day without regaining consciousness on what would have been her fifth birthday.
Close family friend Luis González escaped, remained conscious long enough to hear his best pal had passed away, before losing his own battle for life in hospital later.
Julia's nine-year-old brother Jaime remains in intensive care in a critical condition with 65% burns.
Carmen had not been expected to survive, and Jaime's own life hangs in the balance.
He is unconscious and is not aware that both his parents and his little sister have died.
