NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — Two years ago, Fragrance Harris Stanfield survived the mass shooting at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo. She and her daughter were working there when the killer entered the store.
Now, she is living another trauma. Last week, the RV she was living in with her four youngest children burned down. They escaped safely but the RV was destroyed and now she's picking up the pieces once again.
She recounted how on the morning of April 26, the two older boys had already gone to school and the other two were waiting for their bus.
That's when she noticed smoke.
"What's that smoke on your ceiling?" she asked her boys. "And they're like, 'I don't know.' So I went in there to investigate and I'm looking around and looking, you know, at anything that's plugged in on the floor and looking around and I didn't see anything."
But as she continued to look she saw more smoke and then when she went to her bedroom, she opened the door and saw flames.
They all got out. Stanfield ran back a couple of times to get her son's shoes and then to try to retrieve her purse. But the flames were too strong and she was on the verge of being overcome by smoke.
Now, Stanfield is trying to figure out where she'll live next.
She'd love to be able to get a new RV and stay in the North Tonawanda campgrounds that had become her new home.
She's bracing as May 14 will mark two years since the mass shooting.
The back-to-back traumas have been difficult.
"Every day that I wake up, I'm like, 'ok, I'm still here' so just kind of figure out how to get through the day. And what else can you do? I don't really know how else to describe it... I have some good days. Like today is beautiful outside and you just kind of take the win where you can," said Stanfield.
Her sister helped her set up a GoFundMe to help her and her children get back on their feet. You can find it here.
