A fire originating in the kitchen destroyed the rental home where Turquoise Burgess and her two children were living on Jan. 12. The southside Indianapolis residents lost everything in the blaze, and efforts are ongoing to help them with monetary donations and a new place to live.
SUBMITTED PHOTO BY TURQUOISE BURGESS
Something told her to get moving.
On Jan. 12, Turquoise Burgess and her son, Sincere, had just returned from a doctor’s appointment around mid-afternoon. She had fed Sincere, and he was upstairs watching television. With more than an hour before she needed to pick up her daughter, Turulaya, the southside Indianapolis resident contemplated taking a quick nap.
But as she prepared to lie down on the couch, an unsettled feeling came over her.
“I’m a believer in God, and the man upstairs was urging me, you need to go get your daughter,” she said. “There was some urgency to leave the house, but I didn’t understand it.”
Burgess and Sincere ended up leaving the house to pick up her daughter. While they were gone, an accidental fire broke out, destroying the entire structure and burning all of their possessions.
No one was hurt in the fire. But Burgess has no doubts what would have happened if they had been sleeping when the blaze broke out.
“It didn’t dawn on me until everything happened what that urgency was — it was God protecting me and my son. If I had taken a nap, I wouldn’t have survived. My son wouldn’t have either,” she said.
Burgess and her family have been displaced by the fire, moving in with her father and stepmother in a two-bedroom apartment. Her congregation at Progressive Life Ministries, as well as co-workers at Franciscan Health Cancer Center in Indianapolis and the Red Cross, has helped with everyday items such as clothing and toys for the kids.
But people throughout the community are asking for additional assistance from the public as the family continues to pick up their lives.
“She’s a single mom, and she hasn’t been in the Indianapolis area too terribly long, so when I found out what happened to them, my heart just dropped,” said Joan Himebrook, accreditation and community outreach coordinator for the Franciscan Health Cancer Center. “She is just really sweet person. You meet her and you can’t help but like her. She’s so positive.”
Considering Burgess’ compassionate spirit and kind demeanor, it’s natural that those who know her want to help during such a difficult time. She works as a clinical research coordinator, steering patients at Franciscan Health Cancer Center through the clinical trial process.
Her primary areas are patients with lung and gynecological cancers.
“We work alongside the doctors when they have a patient who would fit one of our trials. We’ll go and talk with them, sit down and instruct them about what the trial would consist of. We let them know we’ll be with them every step of the way,” Burgess said.
Working with such vulnerable patients on potentially life-changing medications has been incredibly rewarding, she said.
“We’re helping increase care and treatment for cancer. The goal is to win against cancer, and we’re trying to get to a level where we can beat it and cure it,” she said. “I’m honored to be a part of that.”
Burgess had no idea how much her life would change when she left the house on Jan. 21. After she and Sincere went to pick up Turulaya, they pulled back into their neighborhood near Garfield Park to find the strobing red-and-white lights of fire trucks.
Flagging down one of the firefighters, she asked what was going on. He told her that one of the homes — one with a burgundy door — had caught fire.
“I just started crying immediately, because that was my house,” she said.
Investigators determined that the fire started accidentally due to a malfunction from the house’s stove. Initially, Burgess held out hope that maybe the blaze had been contained, just damaging the kitchen area and otherwise leaving the house undamaged.
Those hopes were dashed when she saw what had happened.
“It was the whole house. The whole thing was a loss, and everything we had in there,” she said.
The American Red Cross provided Burgess and the kids with emergency funding immediately after the fire, and quickly, others around them stepped in to support. Himebrook spearheaded efforts by co-workers within Franciscan Health Cancer Center to help make donations of money, gift cards and clothing.
Quickly, news about Burgess’ situation spread to the entire hospital community, generating more generosity.
“When they saw the story, the floodgates just opened,” Himebrook said.
Burgess is grateful for all of the clothing, money and gift cards that people have provided. Donors have provided toys and other items for Sincere and Turulaya, making up for the Christmas toys and other playthings they had lost in the fire.
Seeing so many come forward to help the family has been moving.
“Especially Joan and everyone at the Cancer Center, they’ve been donating so much that it’s to the point where I asked them to hold off on clothes and items, because I don’t have anywhere to put them,” she said. “The main thing I need now is shelter.”
A big hurdle has been finding suitable shelter. Burgess was able to move in with her father and stepmother, though the situation is not suitable long-term with three additional people in a two-bedroom apartment.
She was renting the home near Garfield Park, and her property management company hasn’t provided any additional options for shelter, she said.
Moving forward, Himebrook has been helping her find a rental home to move into, and believe they have found one next to Franciscan Health Indianapolis. People can still contribute gift cards and monetary donations can be made by reaching out to Himebrook.
“She’s overwhelmed with grief and sadness over everything she’s lost, but she’s also overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers, people who are stepping up,” Himebrook said.
