Alex Easton said identifying his parents’ bodies after they died in a house fire was the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life and he is “completely broken” by the tragedy.
he North Down MLA said: “Paramedics had been working on mum and dad outside at the back of the house. When I went to identify them, they were lying on a concrete path. I was crying. I will never forget what I saw.
“You try to be brave but you’re seeing something you never wanted to see. I have experienced some very unpleasant things in my life but that is right up there at the top.
“I will never be the same again after this. It will haunt me for the rest of my life. I know that I’m acting brave, putting on a front at coping, but this has completely broken me. Nothing is ever going to make it right.”
The independent unionist politician said he had initially been tortured by thoughts that his wheelchair-using parents had been terrified as flames engulfed their Bangor home last Monday morning.
But he now believes they were asleep when the blaze broke out and they died of smoke inhalation.
Mr Easton described the trauma of returning to his family home two days later, seeing his parents’ empty wheelchairs and surveying the damage.
“I don’t even want to think of it. I want to wipe the memory of it from my mind. I grew up in that house but it’s now just an empty cold shell without my parents in it,” he said.
The MLA, who has previously gone public about his battle with depression and anxiety, said he had deliberately returned to work this week: “It’s my way of coping.
“If I wasn’t busy, I’d be sitting at home thinking about it even more and it would drive me nuts, it would finish me.
“People have been absolutely brilliant. They do care and they’re saying all the right things.
"Everybody has been so kind and I’m really grateful. But, ultimately, you are on your own when something like this happens. Losing your parents like that is a very lonely place to be in.”
Alec and Ann Easton, who were both 83, had been in ill-health for some time.
Alec was a diabetic who had lost his legs while Ann had suffered a stroke.
The North Down MLA received a phone call at 8.45am last Monday from his parents’ carers to say their Dellmount Park house was on fire.
“I live nearby and I raced round. I was there in five minutes,” he said. “When I arrived there was one fire engine there. I was desperate to try to get into the house and save mum and dad but I wasn’t allowed.
“I know you have to let the emergency services do their job but having to just stand there and do nothing is the most frustrating feeling in the world.
“Your adrenaline is pumping and every instinct in your body is telling you that you have to go inside that building. You feel so useless, being outside.
“Three more fire engines, two ambulances, an air ambulance, and about a dozen police arrived. It was like a small army descended on our house, it was totally surreal.”
Mr Easton’s parents slept downstairs. “Dad’s bedroom window had been put in by firefighters. All I could see was black inside,” he said.
“Neighbours came out onto the street and were offering their support. The carers were very upset. I spent two hours pacing up and down, asking questions all the time, desperate for information.”
The MLA said he was informed that paramedics were working on his parents at the back of the house: “I was told that my mother had a pulse but they were more coy about my father.
“Then a short time later, I was told he had a pulse as well and I started getting a bit of hope. Eventually, a firefighter took me to a neighbour’s house and told me both mum and dad had passed away.
“I was asked to identify them. They were lying on the concrete path at the back of our house.”
Mr Easton said firefighters reassured him that his mother was asleep when the blaze began and wouldn’t have known what was happening.
“I was tortured about my dad’s last moments,” the MLA said. “He phoned me every morning and I kept thinking, ‘Daddy why didn’t you ring me when the fire broke out?’; I wondered if he’d desperately wanted to ring me but hadn’t been able to get to his phone because it was out of reach.”
The Eastons’ home was sealed off by police for two days. “I went back on Wednesday and what I saw took me by surprise.
“The blankets that paramedics had laid mum and dad out on so they could work on them were lying there outside. My parents’ wheelchairs were there too, just empty wheelchairs. My dad’s grey cardigan was lying on the ground, the one he’d been wearing that morning.
“Just as I was looking at it, his mobile phone started ringing. It was in his cardigan pocket. I was so relieved because it probably means his phone hadn’t been out of reach and he’d also been asleep when the fire started and didn’t know anything about it.
“I thought it was maybe a wee message he was sending me so I’d stop beating myself up with all the ‘what ifs’.”
There was significant smoke damage to the Eastons’ home downstairs. “Daddy’s bedroom was completely burnt out,” the MLA said.
“I’ve been told there was an electrical fault and the fire started in his room. They’ve taken away a lot of material for examination.
“The electricity was obviously off so I went from room to room with a torch. Bizarrely, there was no damage upstairs. Apart from the smell of smoke, you’d never have guessed anything had happened there.
“I found the whole experience very unsettling. This is where I spent my childhood but after what has happened, after losing my parents in that house, it will never be home again. I want to get rid of all thoughts of it.”
Mr Easton, who was the youngest of three children, was particularly close to his father: “My dad would ring me and say I needed to call round about something important, but he just wanted a chat.
“Daddy loved to talk. He was a storyteller. He was interested in politics and he’d love hearing all the gossip.
“He watched a lot of TV — history documentaries and the news — and he had a radio right beside his bed. My parents were such a big part of my everyday life. I’d be regularly back and forth to the chemists for them getting their medication.
“I brought daddy the newspapers. Every Friday, I’d pick up their shopping list. They loved their biscuits. They both had a sweet tooth and daddy ate a lot of things he shouldn’t have as a diabetic.
“I’d buy whatever food they needed, and then bring it back and pack it away for them. I’m going to miss all that so much.”
Mr Easton said he had planned his parents’ funeral with his brother and sister. “We sat down as a family and discussed what mum and dad would have liked. They’d been together since they were 17. We wanted the service to reflect their love and to do them justice.
“Most of the time before the funeral is a blur to me. There were hundreds of cards and messages, and everywhere I’d go people were stopping me to offer their condolences.”
The MLA said he couldn’t thank the emergency services enough.
“Firefighters risked their lives for my parents; paramedics worked on them for so long; the police were hugely supportive.
“You take all these people for granted, and then something like this happens and you see how special they are.”
Mr Easton, who topped the poll in North Down in last year’s Assembly election, is known for his tireless constituency work.
Although he has chosen to return to serving his constituents just a week after his parents’ death, he said he felt shattered.
“I’m getting only a few hours’ sleep every night.
“I wake up about 4am and go downstairs, have a cup of tea, and sit with the dog. I feel empty inside. I’m on auto-pilot. I was in Marks and Spencer last night where I did my parents’ shopping and it hit me — I’ll never do that again for them.
“I was constantly trying to do my best to help them and that’s just all gone now, there’s a huge gap in my life.
“I never got a final, meaningful conversation with them. I didn’t get to say goodbye.
“You don’t see something like this coming. It just hits you right in the face, it’s a giant kick in the teeth and it hurts — it really hurts.”
