YOUNG mother Abby Cahill and her two children were five minutes away from death before her quick thinking neighbours saved them as flames ripped through their home.

Karen Liotatis, her husband Harry and another neighbour, who wished to be known only as Amanda, heard Abby’s anguished screams.

Fire starting from a candle was engulfing the house in Noreen Avenue, Minster, near Sheerness, at 5am on Christmas Eve.

Neighbours used a wheelie bin to rescue the family from an upstairs bedroom as dense smoke filled the home.

As Harry called the emergency services, Karen supported the bin while Amanda stood on it to break the fall of the children as Abby passed Angel, seven, and Gary, 10, through the window.

Abby, 30, still streaked with soot, described the chain of incidents that nearly cost them their lives and destroyed all their possessions, none of which were insured.

She said: “It had just been an ordinary day, and in the evening I lit a scented candle, then put it standing in its lid on the television set. It looked really lovely.

“The children went up about 8pm. I had a bath and went up around 10.15pm.

“I was woken up by the sound of snapping and cracking, a really horrible sound and I thought we were being broken into.

“I was going to get Gary and Angel into the bathroom because it’s got a lock when I realised it was a fire.

“The smoke was thick and black so I pushed the children into my bedroom, opened the window to get air to them and tried to get a mattress out.

“I was shouting to save my kids, thinking I was going to have to throw them out of the window and risk them serious injury, when Amanda, Karen and Harry came running over.

“They asked if I’d got a ladder and I said no. They tried to break the door down, but couldn’t and that was when they thought of the wheelie bin.”

In tears, Abby recalled: “Amanda was standing there on the bin with her arms open and I passed Angel into them and then Gary.” Then she followed them out of the window.

The shocked family were taken into Karen and Harry’s house where they were checked over by paramedics.