A 6-year-old girl has died after being left brain dead by a raging Queens house fire that killed her 95-year-old great-grandmother and criticlly hurt her grandmother, the girl’s devastated mother told the Daily News.
Little Aylani Burgos died Friday, five days after the raging fire consumed the family’s multi-generational home on 202nd St. near 113th Ave. in St. Albans, claiming the life of her great-grandmother. The little girl’s grandmother is still fighting for life on a ventilator.
“I’m in shock,” Aylani’s mom, Janai Grant, 25, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview. “I just know when it comes to seeing (Aylani) in the casket, it’s going to break me apart.”
The grieving mom shared with The News a poem Aylani wrote that Grant only discovered after her little girl’s death.
“I recently came home and I found her book and she wrote this little poem,” Grant explaned. “I never check her diary. She would just show me, like, ‘Look, Mommy.’ She never showed me this.”
GoFundMe; Courtesy of family
Aylani’s mother, Janai Grant (left), shared a poem Aylani wrote in her diary (right) that Grant discovered after the little girl’s death. (GoFundMe; Courtesy of family)
The poem, written in a furry pink notebook on paper with a unicorn illustration, talks about being sad and happy at the same time.
“And that’s exactly how I feel,” Grant said, her voice breaking. “I feel happy and sad. I feel happy that she’s at peace, she doesn’t have to have tubes down her throat.”
Aylani, who lived with her mother in South Hempstead, L.I., had spent the night at the longtime family home shared by her grandmother and great-grandmother while her mom worked when the fire erupted around 7:50 a.m. Nov. 23.
Courtesy of family
Aylani Burgos, 6, has died after clinging to life for days after a fire broke out in her family’s Queens house on Nov. 23. (Courtesy of family)
The FDNY has not yet determined the cause of the fire but Grant says investigators told her they believe it was electrical in nature. The blaze, which began in the cellar, quickly spread to the second floor, where the three victims were trapped.
Firefighters rescued lttle Aylani first. She was taken to Cohen Children’s Medical Center in critical condition.
Alani’s 68-year-old grandmother, Paula Buncom-Grant, was taken to Long Island Jewish Valley Stream in critical condition. She is now alert and was temporarily breathing on her own but has since been put back on a ventilator.
“That lady’s a warrior,” Grant said of her mother. “That lady’s a fighter.”
Alani’s great-grandmother, Joyce Buncom, was rushed to the same hospital but could not be saved.
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
The fire consumed the multi-generational home on 202nd St. in St. Albans. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Grant was getting ready for work when she learned about the fire and dropped everything to get to the flaming house. She works two jobs, at a hospital and in orthopedics.
She then rushed from the scene to her daughter’s hospital bedside, where doctors told her Aylani had lost consciousness for 46 minutes. As a result, she was braindead,
“They told me her realm of dreaming and thinking critically and her memories, her personality, that’s completely gone,” Grant said. “At first I was in denial, like maybe a miracle…”
“They ran the test again the next day and it was the same thing. I asked to see the scans,” she added. “She had absolutely not even the slightest bit of brain activity.”
GoFundMe
Aylani Burgos (center) with her great-grandmother Joyce Buncom, who died in the fire, and her grandmother Paula Buncom-Grant, who is still hospitalized. (GoFundMe)
Grant said she was still in the process of saying goodbye when Aylani’s organs started failing. The little girl died early Friday.
“She was my everything, my only child. I had her at 19 so we were growing up together,” Grant said. ”I used to joke and say, ‘I’m one and done.’ Because there is never going to be anyone like her, you know?”
“It was just so fun being her mom — like, so fun,” she added. “The most rewarding job in this world.”
Aylani had just transferred to Public School 95 The Gravesend School a week before the fire, Grant said. She participated in gymnastics and cooking club.
“She was very smart,” Grant said. “She loved to read. She loved to write and draw. She was excellent at drawing. She definitely loved her iPad and her Roblox. She had such a creative, beautiful mind. Her life barely started and she passed away.”
Grant is also mourning her nonagenarian grandmother.
Born in 1930, Buncom, who stood only 4-foot-11, was a former correction officer and gym teacher. She and her husband moved to St. Albans in the 1960s, buying the house that burned for $40,000, according to Grant.
GoFundMe
Aylani’s great-grandmother Joyce Buncom, 95, died in the fire on Nov. 23. (GoFundMe)
An avid traveler who loved bingo, crocheting and dancing, she was a devoted member of her local St. Pascal Baylon Church for over 60 years. She continued going to Mass every Sunday and remained active in church life well into her 90s, her family says.
Grant has started a GoFundMe to help cover mounting hospital and funeral costs. Little Aylani’s service is planned for Dec. 11.
“It’s just a lot for me because I have to deal with planning two funerals and my mom’s in the hospital,” Grant said. “There’s progress and stuff and then it’s like taking five steps forward and two steps back. It’s just so hard for me right now.”
With Rocco Parascandola