Steel frame bed mattress burst into flame after three-years-old child plays with matches - 1 dead, 3 injured

Toddler Leo Messam, aged 23 months, died after a fire broke out at his home in Myrtle Street (Crewe, UK) at about 8.30am in the morning of Sunday 21st November 2010. His mum Charlotte Banks (22) dad Taurean Messam (23) and brothers Tyrese (3) and Dannon (3 months) were taken to Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation and shock. The toddler was pronounced dead on arrival at Hospital. He died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning. This was an accident as a result of the mattress being ignitable by a child playing with matches. The fire had begun in the bedroom where three year-old brother slept alongside his younger brother Leo. The source of the fire was discarded matches. The seat of the fire was a steel frame bed which had a polyurethane mattress which would ignite very quickly and produced an impenetrable barrier of smoke and flame which prevented from getting into the bedroom to rescue Leo. All that remained was the steel frame. The heat was so intense that the steel had lost its strength and had started sagging. The cot itself, where Leo died, didn’t have a great deal of fire damage, suggesting it was mainly radiated heat which affected it.