On Wednesday, a fire erupted in West London’s Grenfell Tower, claiming the lives of 17 people with concerns that over 100 people may be dead. Those affected have lost everything, their homes and possessions reduced to rubble, leaving many questioning how they’ll be able to rebuild.
The horrors that those inside the tower faced would be enough to traumatise anyone, unless, of course, you’re Ines Alve, who rocked up to her exam the very next day wearing her pyjamas hours after she escaped the blaze.
Ines’ father Miguel woke her and her brother, Tiago, at around 1 in the morning as the fire spread throughout the North Kensington tower block. Tiago, a physics student at a local London College, said: “My dad just opened the door and ran in saying ‘get your stuff, get dressed, we are going downstairs, there’s a fire.”
Ines grabbed her phone and study notes and like some sort of kick-ass action movie hero uttered ‘If I’m not sleeping, I may as well be studying’ before ducking out the tower for a bit of book learnin’.
She headed to a friend’s place to take refuge for the night and then travelled to Sacred Heart School in Hammersmith to take her exam at 9 am, still wearing the clothes from the previous night.
“I put on my jeans and a top and just grabbed by phone and chemistry notes,” she told The Telegraph. “I was trying to revise while we waited downstairs as we thought it was a small fire at first but it was impossible.“It was my Chemistry GCSE and that’s what I want to do in my A-levels next year so I thought maybe it was necessary to do it.“It was still really shocking and it hadn’t hit me yet, it still hasn’t completely hit me that we’ve lost our house. But I still managed to think through in my exam and do it. Considering I hadn’t looked over my notes I think it went fairly well.”
Her family told her that she wouldn’t have to sit the exam seeing as she’d just escaped a bloody burning building, but the 16-year-old was adamant that she was going through with it. “I am very proud of her because she did what,” her father said. “I never expected for her to do the exam that night but she decided to go.”
Big props to her for valuing her education that highly, surely that means the markers will be a bit more lenient?
Source and image: The Telegraph
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