CINCINNATI -- Doctors in Buffalo knew they couldn't give Treasure Brighon the help she needed.
Treasure is 8 years old. And early Friday morning, a few days after her family moved into their new home in Buffalo, New York, a devastating fire tore through the duplex.
Treasure suffered burns to 90 percent of her body.
Demetrius Johnson, 24, was killed after pulling Treasure to safety, then running back inside to rescue his 3-year-old son. A firefighter found the 3-year-old near where Johnson died and carried the child out, Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield said at a news conference. The boy was hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
The same fire also killed a 49-year-old man living on the second floor of the two-family home.
The children's mother, Tempest Thomas, and their 1-year-old brother weren't injured.
"They were just all-around family, and that's what was so important to them, was family," Treasure's aunt, Gwendolyn Taylor, said.
Emergency room doctors in Buffalo quickly realized Treasure's condition was too severe for them to treat. They called Shriners Hospital for Children in Cincinnati, which sent a team of specialists by jet to pick her up.
Hours later, volunteers with Wings Flights of Hope in Buffalo put together a last-minute flight so Thomas and Treasure's grandmother can be by her side in Cincinnati.
Thomas and Johnson had been engaged for less than a week, she said: He proposed on Valentine's Day.
"It's like I'm numb to the situation," Thomas said after landing at Lunken Airport late Friday night. "I can't stop breaking out crying. I lost my husband I was with seven, going on eight years. Words can't express how I feel right now, when you lose your husband, you almost lost your kids.
"It's a horrible feeling. I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy, nobody."
