Six-year-old Brandon Maina would bear the heaviest brunt of the September 1, 2018 incident where a gas cylinder exploded in their house causing unbearable damage.
Maina's father Henry Irungu, 34, had on that day routinely refilled the gas cylinder from a suspect dealer at Sh450 in Mwea township, unaware that the move would forever haunt his family.
The Class One boy sustained severe burns on the legs, hands and the face and was left with deformed limbs and face even as he hid under a sofa set.
Last Friday, the boy's family, still traumatised by the fire was discharged from Kerugoya Referral Hospital.
Brandon had spent nine months at the facility with the family at his side.
But even the discharge had to take intervention of the county that waived the family's Sh450,000 bill.
Irungu, a building supervisor, sustained serious burns on both hands and the chest.
His wife Eunice Nyaguthii and their 18-month-old daughter also bore grave burns in the evening tragedy.
He recalls events of that day as if it were yesterday.
“After getting home, I asked my wife to take the cylinder and start preparing supper for us but she asked me to light it for her since she was still holding our youngest child," he said.
Irungu tried to fix the gas regulator, but instead of fitting into the provisions provided, it exploded with a loud bang and ignited his entire house.
He said he was able to master strength and managed to push out his wife and the infant from the inferno.
“It never occurred to me that Brandon was still trapped in the raging fire," he tearfully recalls.
By the time, the razing house's iron sheets which were red hot started falling off making it almost impossible to rescue the trapped child.
“Later I dashed into the fire and found Brandon under a burning Sofa set while shielding himself with a cushion. I pulled him out but he had severe hand and facial burns," he said. "he was breathing."
A county ambulance collected the injured family from a local dispensary to the Kerugoya Referral Hospital for specialised treatment.
"My wife and the toddler were discharged after a month and I would stay there for two months," said Irungu whose mother Elizabeth Muthoni took charge of his home during their absence.
Brandon who sustained serious head, legs and hands injuries was the last to be discharged from the hospital after nine months.
He, however, still requires corrective surgery of his hands which were deformed.
In total, the family had run a Sh450,000 bill which they had no way of footing.
A nursing officer at the Burns Unit, Beth Njeru, said at six years, Brandon's deformed hands could certainly be straightened at the theatre once doctors were satisfied he was ready for the operation.
Njeri said the skin grafting on the legs and partly on the hands was successful and one day the boy would live a normal life.
“I received a phone call from someone who informed me that he had been directed by Governor Anne Waiguru not to worry about the hefty hospital bill as it had been waived,” a joyful Irungu said as he picked his son from the facility.
He, however, regrets buying the gas cylinder from a backstreet operator.
