Preston fatal fire inquest to look at ambulance response

Louis and Desire Busuioc died in hospital four days after the blaze

A coroner has adjourned an inquest into the deaths of two children after a house fire as he wants to hear more from the ambulance service.

Louis Busuioc, five, and Desire Busuioc, three, died four days after the blaze in Preston in April 2022.

The hearing was told the emergency was first given a lower priority and North West Ambulance Service arrived after police and the fire service.

The ambulance service has seven days to respond.

Det Ch Insp Rachel Hidgson, of Lancashire Police, said a "naked flame held to the settee had caused the fire" and was probably caused by one of the children.

She said an investigation found that part of a stove lighter was recovered next to the settee at the home in Coronation Crescent, Frenchwood.

Chris Long, coroner for Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen, was told one of the children was previously caught playing with a lighter.

He said he wanted to look at the entire emergency response - but the ambulance service needed to be legally represented.

Louis and Desire Busuioc's mother tried to get her children out of their burning home through a bedroom window

He has widened the scope of the inquest and will examine whether response time standards were met and will also look at the treatment and the availability of drugs in the ambulance.

The inquest at Preston's County Hall earlier heard the children's mother Lorena Feraru "screamed for help" and desperately tried to pull them out of a bedroom window but they resisted.

In a statement she said she fell asleep watching television in the children's bedroom when she was woken by a fire alarm.

Within minutes the house filled with smoke, the inquest heard.

At one point she managed to get one of the children part way through the window before the child went back inside.

The inquest was told another window in the bedroom was a fire window but had previously had a handle removed.

Call upgraded

The children's parents, Ms Feraru and Lucian Bosuioc, were not at the hearing.

The couple have previously raised concerns about what they claim was a delay in firefighters entering the property.

The inquest was also told a 999 call was received at 19:52 BST on 8 April and firefighters arrived at the address six minutes later.

They were "very quickly" inside the property and got the children out, the inquest heard.

The court was told the ambulance service classified the first call to them as a grade two priority but it was later upgraded to grade one.

The children were treated by firefighters and police before in an ambulance arrived and they were taken to hospital where they later died.

Det Ch Insp Higson said: "There wasn't anything that anyone could have done differently. I do not believe anything more could have been done to save them."

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