親身經歷:我的貓從火堆中救了我

Early one morning last February, I felt the thud of my cat Tink's paws as she landed on my legs. I was fast asleep and she woke me up, which had never happened before. It was completely uncharacteristic: she sleeps downstairs and never comes into the bedroom.

去年2月的一天清晨,當她落在我腿上的時候，我感覺我的貓-丁當的爪子狠抓了一下。她把我從熟睡中叫醒了,之前從沒發生過，這完全是不尋常的:她睡在樓下,從不進臥室。

I sat up feeling groggy because I'd been out the night before, but I soon realised something was very wrong. The room was half-filled with a layer of white smoke, eerie and alarming, hanging in the air about three feet deep like a bank of white cloud.

因爲前天晚上外出，所以我昏昏沉沉地坐起來,但很快我意識到一些事情是異常的。房間裏充滿了一層白色的煙霧,怪異和令人驚慌, 像一堆白色的雲懸掛在三英尺高的空中。

I woke up my partner, Russ, in a panic and we jumped out of bed. As we waded through the thick smoke, I was still trying to process exactly what was going on, and the danger only really hit me when I went out on to the landing.

我把我的愛人Russ叫醒，恐慌中我們跳下牀。當我們費力的穿過厚厚煙霧時，我仍然試圖確定到底發生了什麼,當我出去站在地上時危險才真正到來。

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Our son Jake, 19, had woken up, too, and as he opened his brother Scott's door, black smoke billowed out. The smoke from Scott's room curled up to the ceiling; it was only then that the smoke alarm was triggered. Scott, 22, emerged, shouting above the racket that he was struggling to breathe. I phoned the fire brigade, who told us to leave the house as quickly as we could.

我的兒子傑克19歲也已經醒了，當他打開他哥哥斯科特的門時,黑煙滾滾，煙一下子從斯科特的房間衝到天花板上，觸發了那裏的煙霧報警器。22歲的斯科特跳出來大喊大叫，他難以呼吸。我撥通了消防隊的電話,他告訴我們儘可能的儘快離開房子。

It was a massive wrench, leaving all of our belongings behind, but we knew we had no choice. We assumed Tink had slipped out of the house, too.

留下我們所有的財產是巨大的痛苦,但是我們知道別無選擇，我們想着丁當也已經溜出了房子。

Within minutes, six fire engines arrived. As I stood blearily in the road, I looked at our house and realised that the source of the fire was actually our next-door neighbour's - flames were licking the front of her house. She had also managed to get out and was later taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.

幾分鐘後,六輛消防車來了。當我睏倦無神地站在路上看着我們的房子時,我意識到了火焰是從隔壁鄰居的屋子前面蔓延過來的。她已經設法逃出來了，因爲吸入濃煙太多已被送往醫院。