It’s still difficult for Dawn Scott to look at photographs of her family’s townhome destroyed by fire.
She swipes through pictures on her phone, holding back the tears as she looks at what used to be her two sons’ bedrooms.
"This is literally my worst fear, to have a house fire,” Scott said.
Earlier this week, a fire ripped through their home at the Oak Ridge Apartments in Largo. Three families were displaced by the fire.
This is the second tragedy the Scott family has faced in the past year. Scott’s husband was in a car accident last August and was having neck surgery the same morning of the fire.
"The accident just turned our lives upside down as it is with him being in pain all the time and now the fire, it’s my worst nightmare,” Scott said.
But in a strange twist of fate, Dawn Scott says her husband’s surgery may be the reason her family is alive.
"Maybe this ball has been rolling from that accident just to save us down the road,” Scott said.
Originally scheduled for a later time, the surgery got moved up. Scott’s older son then man a last-minute decision to drop his younger brother off with relatives the night before and go with his parents to the hospital.
No one was home when the fire started.
"If we didn’t change our last minute plans, they would have been up there sleeping the bedrooms,” Scott said.
The Scott family can move into another apartment in the complex, but they lost almost everything in the fire.
Friends are now pitching in by donating furniture and clothing to the family.
"We all just need to pitch in to make it as comfortable a situation as possible,” family friend Holly Mills said.
Even people who have never met the Scott’s have donated.
"It’s just amazing,” Scott said. “Our life was crushed and now there’s a little bit of hope because these strangers are coming through."
A GoFundMe account has been set up here to raise money for the Scott family, The Gofundme.com site is not managed by Bay News 9. For more information on how the site works and the rules visit http://www.gofundme.com/safety.