Suffolk, Va. - "I couldn't breathe. I had to hurry up and get out of there as soon as possible I couldn't see nothing I had to get out of there. It was my only choice. Either to stay in here with it or jump out of here."
Antwoinette McMillian describes what went through her mind while she stood by the ledge of her window on the second floor of her apartment, as smoke filled her home.
"When I first was standing up there I was looking down like am I gonna do this? Like I don't know but I'm not gonna jump straight out and break something I probably went to the side when I fell," she said.
As soon as she hit the ground from the nearly 15-foot jump. She immediately got up, and walked away with only a few scratches.
"Five, maybe 10 seconds later when I walked to the corner, flames start busting out both windows, kitchen window and living room I'm looking like, I can't believe this, is this really real?"
When firefighters finally were able to put out the flames, it hit Antwoinette -- she lost everything she owned.
"It's everything that I have, it's gone, the clothes I got, my aunt did this for me, everything is gone. Everything that I have. It hurts to see everything that I work hard for on my own. I'm alive. I'm alive but I'm just saying you gotta understand where I'm coming from too," she added.
But -- she still has her life.
"I'm blessed to be here, simple, that's it, because I could have died, burnt to death. There's not too much I can explain. I am just blessed to be here. Maybe he has something better in store for me, better than this," she says.
