In September 2019, a fire woke 31-year-old Emma Schols. The mother of 6 was home alone with her children and frantically became aware that a fire had started in the lower portion of their home in Edsbyn, Sweden.

Two of her boys had just awaked and went downstairs to play, she says in an interview with Swedish news outlet Alftonbladet:

“They had just woken up and gone down, so I rushed after them. Then I would not have understood how bad it would be. My only thought was that I had to get the boys who had taken shelter in the playroom out.”

Schols reached her children and used her body to protect them as she ushered them out the front door. It was then that she noticed just how bad the fire already was:

“I threw myself like a shield over the boys so that they would not be injured. When the flames hit me, it was as if my whole back was on fire. But I kept going. I threw the boys out the front door and locked them so they wouldn’t come in again. They were terrified.”

As she opened the front door, the rush of oxygen into the room fueled the flames and caused them to burn even more fiercely. The other four children were still upstairs, and the stairs were engulfed in flames at this point, causing them to be impassible. She instructed the children to move outside to the balcony as she started up the burning stairs to her remaining children:

“Then there was fire in the whole staircase. For each step I thought that ‘this is not possible’ but then I thought that it must go for four of my children are still up there. It was so hot that the soles of the feet start to drop from the feet. They just hang like threads.”

Her 9-year-old daughter Nellie had jumped from the balcony and ran to a neighbor’s for help, while 11-year-old William grabbed a ladder from the balcony so the younger children could climb down to safety:

“The boys got a shock when I came out on the balcony. I was bleeding and had open burns all over my body. The skin on my chest had begun to peel away and my hair was just like a piece of charcoal on my head.”

It was then that Emma realized her youngest child, 1-year-old Mollie, was not on the balcony with her siblings, but was still in her crib. As she turned to re-enter the house to try and save Mollie, her sons begged her not to go. But Emma would not leave her daughter behind, and falling to the floor, proceeded to slowly crawl to Mollie’s bedroom.

“It was such thick smoke and so hard to breathe. I was so terribly tired but could see through the smoke how Mollie stood there in her crib and cried and was terrified. Then I suddenly got such an enormous force and managed to get to my feet and lift her up. I only had my own body, no blanket, no protection, only myself and my mother’s heart.” 

Emma miraculously made it back to the balcony where William had the steps in place, and she painfully carried Mollie down. Once she reached the ground, she collapsed in pain and exhaustion.

“Then it was as if all the pain came at once. It hurt so terribly. I had taken all the children out and thought that now I could die.”

As the ambulance was preparing to take her away, Emma promised her children she would return home to them. Miraculously, all six of Emma’s children escaped unharmed. Emma was placed on ICU where she was on a ventilator for three weeks, with her doctors uncertain if she would recover. Her first thoughts upon waking out of her medically induced coma were of her children, and whether they were alive and alright. She was relieved to hear everyone was alright, but it was a bittersweet reunion with her children who had not seen her for a month.

“It was fantastic, but at the same time tough. Youngest Mollie did not recognize me. That was probably the hardest part. She did not want to come to me. Which I can understand with all appliances and hoses. Then I looked completely different.”

After aggressively tackling rehab and making incredible improvements, Emma was finally able to go home to her family in the Spring of 2020, and they all lived happily together in the apartment they were renting while their home was being rebuilt.

“Now they recognize me again. The fire and what we have been through has left traces all over my body, and has affected the whole family. But what we have been through has also brought us closer. Today I take nothing for granted and am grateful for every day we have together.”