A former child actor and inspirational speaker died in the California wildfires when his home in Malibu was overtaken by flames, his mother said, recalling his last heartbreaking words: "Mom, leave me."
The mother of Rory Callum Sykes, Shelley Sykes, announced the death of her 32-year-old son, who starred in the British TV show "Kiddy Kapers," in a post on her X page.
"It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of my beautiful son @Rorysykes to the Malibu fires," she wrote on Thursday. "I'm totally heart broken."
Rory, who moved from the United Kingdom to Australia, was born blind and with cerebral palsy and had trouble walking. He died in a cottage he lived in on his family's 17-acre Malibu property.
Shelley said her son, who as a youth gave inspirational speeches about his struggles with blindness and cerebral palsy, died "needlessly" in the fires that have been charred thousands of acres around Los Angeles since Tuesday.
As the hot embers showered the home, Shelley said she ran to save her son, but found the hoses had no water and her calls to 911 went unanswered.
"He said, 'Mom, leave me,'" Shelley told Australian news outlet 10 News First.
"No mom can leave their kid," she said, adding that "I couldn't lift him. I couldn't move him."
She said she drove to a nearby fire station to get help.
"They said, 'We've got no water.' And I said, 'Oh my God. My son is locked in his room,'" she said.
When the fire crews brought her back to the home, she said it was too late.
"His cottage was burnt to the ground," she said.
The mom wrote in the posting that her son never gave up.
"He overcame so much with surgeries & therapies to regain his sight & to be able to learn to walk. Despite the pain, he [was] still enthused about traveling the world with me from Africa to Antarctica," Shelley wrote.
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