Escaping California Wildfire, Wife Dies In Husband’s Arms In Swimming Pool: Married 55 Years

The horror stories coming out of the California wildfires are heart-wrenching. The loss of life in these fast-moving fires is unfathomable. A husband held his dead wife in his arms for hours after she succumbed to the heat, smoke, and flames while both struggled to stay alive in a swimming pool. This is just one of the many sad stories emerging today as dozens have died and hundreds are still missing in the California wildfires.

Carmen and Armando Berriz rented a vacation house in Santa Rosa for their family to join them as they all spent time in the beautiful wine country. They occupied their days as one big family viewing the sights and swimming in the pool in the yard before they’d retire each night in that rented house on Crystal Court in the north end of Santa Rosa.

It was early Monday morning when their son-in-law Luis Ocon woke up to something going on outside. He looked out the window to see an amber hit the ground and explode into flames that quickly surrounded the home. It was 1 a.m. when Luis woke his wife, daughter, and in-laws Carmen and Armando, and told them to quickly get out of the house.

It was hard to explain unless you were there, said Luis to reporters. According to WSBTV News, they were woken up by embers hitting the ground and it went from embers to complete engulfment of fire in a matter of 30 to 40 seconds, he said.

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The family split up into three separate cars and made their way down the hill to safety, or at least part of the family did. Luis and his wife made it with their cars. But Monica Berriz Ocon’s parents were nowhere to be found. That’s when the frightening realization sunk in: Armando and Carmen had not made it down the hill. Luis told his wife to wait there as he planned to head back up the hill to see where his in-laws were, but the police would not let him through. They said it was too dangerous, reports CBS local news.

Carmen and Armando’s car got stuck on a fallen tree, preventing them from making it down the hill to safety. Armando thought of the pool, and he and Carmen made it through the flames to that pool that was now surrounded by an inferno. Armando held on to the side of the pool with one hand and he had his wife in the other arm as they attempted to ride out the fire.

Armando’s hand was burning from the heat, as were their faces, no matter how often they would get them wet. After a few hours of intense heat and smoke, Carmen stopped breathing, but Armando held onto her body in that pool until the fire passed. That is when he placed his wife’s body on the pool steps and went for help.

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His face and hand were badly burned and he was taken to a hospital burn unit by the first group of rescuers he happened upon. Monica Berriz Ocon and her husband got word of her father being in the hospital and rushed to his side. The sad news about their mother was something that Armando would reveal to his daughter and her family. The couple had been married 55 years, according to CBS local news.

Carmen suffered from respiratory problems and her daughter said her lungs just gave out. She lived through the worst part of the fire in that pool, but she died in her husband’s arms as the fire continued to rage. Armando has since gone home to his daughter’s house where he will recuperate from the burns.

[Featured Image by Reed Saxon/AP Images]