What a difference a year has made for one Winnipeg family who made a daring escape from a 2016 New Year’s Day fire, one year ago.
Dzintars Giertmanis and Alena Giertmane jumped from their second-storey apartment after their Christmas tree caught fire, filling the apartment with smoke.
The front door wouldn't open, leaving a window as the only exit.
To save their seven-month-old daughter Agnese, Alena dropped the baby to Dzintars below. He managed to make the catch.
"From that day, of course, we are feeling great,” said Giertmane beside her husband, both of them smiling.
"Then you are thinking. ‘What if I didn't catch?,’ and immediately [you think] ‘it can't be, it can't be’," said Giertmanis.
READ MORE: Couple speaks about jumping from window to save baby daughter
Agnese made it down without a scratch, completely unharmed. But that wasn't the case for her parents. The couple spent three months recovering in hospital.
“I remember that I landed and I was alive. I didn't feel pain at that time,” said Giertmane, who broke her heels and fractured her spine from the force of the fall. At first, doctors told Giertmane they didn’t know if she'd walk again.
Giertmanis suffered a fracture in his back, and broke bones in his leg and shoulder.
While in hospital, they both missed Agnese terribly.
"That was the most difficult part. The most difficult is to be away from your child, of course, but we couldn't change it,” Giertmane said.
The family is living in a new home since the fire. The couple is grateful to all the people who cared for Agnese while they were in hospital, and helped them on their journey over the past 12 months.
"Because so much pain, so much difficulty,” said Giertmanis. “But the most I learned is how many friends, how many friendly people we meet."
Both have returned to work. Giertmane and Giertmanis say they underwent intensive physiotherapy to get back on their feet.
“I still have some pain in my back, of course. It's not the same as it was before, and still a little bit of pain in my heels. It's okay. I can function,” Giertmane said.
