Mum desperately tried to rescue her two children from fire which engulfed their Preston home, inquest hears

Romania-born Lorena Feraru re-lived the nightmare when she became trapped upstairs with her youngsters as their home in Coronation Crescent, Frenchwood became filled with choking black smoke.

Area Coroner Chris Long read out a statement from the young mother – who did not attend the hearing on Monday (January 8) - in which she described how she struggled to lift five-year-old Louis Busuioc and his three-year-old sister Desire-Elena to the bedroom window to drop them to waiting neighbours.

In the end she climbed through the narrow top window herself and leapt for her life into the arms of people below.

Within minutes firefighters arrived and fought off a ferocious blaze to reach the children upstairs.

But despite the efforts of fire, police and paramedics to revive them they did not respond and they were both pronounced dead in the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital four days later when treatment was withdrawn.

The inquest, at County Hall in Preston, heard how the mother and her children were in the front bedroom of the mid-terraced house on a Friday evening in April 2022.

The family were watching TV because the set in the downstairs lounge was broken. Her partner Lucian Busuioc had earlier left for work.

Ms Ferara said her daughter fell asleep and then she nodded off too, only to be woken by a smoke alarm.

She went onto the landing and could not see any smoke or smell burning, so she tried to silence the ceiling alarm using a broom.

Moments later the stairwell filled with thick black smoke and they were trapped.

After rousing the children she tried to open the main bedroom window - installed as an escape window - but found its handle was missing.

It was said the couple had removed it weeks earlier as a safety precaution to prevent the children climbing on the bed, opening the window and falling out.

She tried to get help by shouting through the narrow top window, telling passers-by she had children in there.

She said she was struggling for air and the children were coughing loudly.

She held them up to the open window to get air, but was unable to lift them through to drop them to those below.

Eventually as the smoke got thicker she was urged by the crowd to climb through the window and drop down onto a makeshift platform made by neighbours using a board and a wheelie bin.

Within minutes firefighters arrived wearing breathing apparatus and, beating back the flames and smoke, bravely dashed into the house to find the youngsters upstairs and bring them out.

First aid was performed by the emergency services using oxygen and defibrillators and the children were rushed off to hospital.

At a pre-inquest hearing in August 2022 it was said the parents of the children had raised concerns about the speed of the emergency response.

But Det Chief Insp Rachel Higson, who led the investigation into the deaths of the children, told the coroner that according to call logs it had taken the fire service less than eight minutes to reach the children and get them out of the blazing building.

"Everyone was doing their utmost - everybody was trying to do their best by those children," she said.

"It was extremely sad but, unfortunately, they were unable to save those children.

"I don't believe there was anything more that could have been done."