According to his mother, Rory Callum Sykes, a former child actor, is one of the people who have perished in the terrible wildfires in Los Angeles.
The 32-year-old, who had cerebral palsy and was blind, unfortunately died when fierce flames destroyed the family’s home close to Malibu.
Shelley, his distraught mother, has described how she fought valiantly to save her son and the property but returned to discover the 17-acre estate “burnt to the ground.”
Rory, who was born in Britain and immigrated to Australia as a toddler, disproved medical professionals’ predictions that he would live his entire life blind and in a wheelchair.
Despite his health problems, he managed to learn to walk, run, and see. Shelley wrote a parenting book called Callum’s Cure about her “miracle on legs.”
Rory has ‘overcome so much’ in his life, she claimed, including going through ‘therapies to restore his sight and to be able to learn how to walk’.
The kid actor, who starred in the British RTV series Kiddy Kapers in 1998, tragically passed away on Wednesday, January 8, as a result of the fumes from the massive Palisades Fire that was raging in Los Angeles.
‘Totally sad’ to lose her ‘beautiful kid’ under such terrible circumstances, Shelley wrote in a message posted on Twitter.
She wrote: “It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of my beautiful son Rory Sykes to the Malibu fires yesterday. I’m totally heartbroken.”
“British born Australian living in America, a wonderful son, a gift born on mine & his grandmas birthday 29 July, 92.”
“Despite the pain, he still enthused about traveling the world with me from Africa to Antarctica.”
Rory, she explained, was ‘decked up with all the newest Apple gear’ in his own separate home on their acreage in Los Angeles.
Shelley claimed that the ‘water was cut off’ when she attempted in vain to use a hose to put out the cinders she saw on his roof.
https://twitter.com/shelleysykes/status/1877386169471979588
The mother said that her “baby had died needlessly” in an interview with the Australian news organization 10 News First.
“All the phone lines were down,” Shelley said. “[Rory] said, ‘Mum, leave me’. No mum can leave their kid. I’ve got a broken arm, I couldn’t lift him, I couldn’t move him.”
The author claimed that after failing to call 911, she drove a quarter of a mile through the dense smoke plumes that were enveloping the region in an attempt to obtain assistance.
She said she was told they had ‘no water’ after locating some emergency personnel.
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