Rosa Jenkins' grandkids run her ragged.
If she isn't keeping 3-year-old Saniyah Harrison from pasting stickers of fairies on her furniture, Jenkins is busy chasing after 1-year-old William Harrison, who is sure to leave a trail of crumbs through her East Side home.
But the 54-year-old grandmother said she wouldn't have it any other way.
Just two months ago, the children were pulled out of a burning Wilmington home -- one in cardiac arrest, the second in respiratory arrest. Emergency crews worked on the children's almost lifeless bodies in front of horrified neighbors before rushing them to the hospital.
"To remember them from the way they were in the hospital to the way they are now, is just magnificent," said Jenkins, their paternal grandmother. "I am truly thankful and truly, truly blessed. God has done his miracle."
When firefighters pulled the children from the second floor of their row house in the 1100 block of Pleasant St. in Wilmington's Hilltop Neighborhood, neither child had significant burns, but the two suffered severe smoke inhalation.
Saniyah was in respiratory arrest at the fire scene, while William had gone into cardiac arrest. Smoke inhalation can cause a combination of injuries, including burns to the throat and lungs and chemical poisoning. Because smoke particles can block oxygen to cells and tissues, there are sometimes serious and permanent neurological effects.
Others in the home were able to get out safely. The Wilmington Fire Marshal's Office ruled the blaze accidental, citing an electrical malfunction.
The children were taken to Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Rockland. The boy was later transferred to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in critical condition.
Saniyah, who was in serious but stable condition, remained at duPont hospital.
"It was very traumatic," said Lawshawn Harrison, the children's mother. "That is something that no one would ever imagine would happen to them."
Harrison said she wondered how the family would pull through the fire after losing her home and with her two children in the hospital.
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