Mother of former child actor who died in the Los Angeles fires recalls attempts to save him
The mother of former child actor Rory Callum Sykes, who died in the Los Angeles fires at 32, recalled how she tried to save him.
"I noticed that my son’s cottage roof had some floaty debris and ash falling on his roof,” Shelley Sykes told ABC News Australia in a sit-down interview recently posted on YouTube. “I tried to put the flames out on his roof with the hose pipe and there was no water, so I kind of freaked out about that.”
Shelley noted that her son was born blind and had cerebral palsy. He had difficulty walking, and she couldn't get him to evacuate his home.
“Rory had locked the door and he wasn’t coming out because he’d got swollen feet and he needed the bathroom,” Shelley recalled. “He said, ‘Mom, just leave me, you go sort yourself out—I’m good.’”
She tried to look for help to put the fire out, but nobody had water.
“I said, ‘Please do something, he needs to get out of his cottage or the flames need to be put out,’” she said. “They came back within an hour.”
But it was already too late.
Shelley was asked to identify his son in the debris.
“My heart sank,” Shelley said. “I thought they’d probably got him out of the cottage and he suffocated or something had happened where he wasn’t around."
She said all three cottages, which were fireproofed and built to code, were burned to the ground.
"My heart is pounding at six million miles an hour but the shock when I got there," she said. "There was nothing. It was black ash."
Shelley said Rory "had a beautiful life and he was where he was wanting to be, but it was just sad."
I don’t think he would’ve died if we had water," she added.
She took to X to announce her son's passing on Jan. 10.
“It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of my beautiful son @Rorysykes to the Malibu fires,” she wrote. “I’m totally heart broken. British born Australian living in America, a wonderful son, a gift born on mine & his grandmas birthday 29 July 92, Rory Callum Sykes.”
She noted how he was a "true humanitarian," as the co-founder of Happy Charity.
She also recalled him being an avid fan of Apple and the fantasy open-world game Runescape.
Rory appeared in the television show Kiddy Kapers in the '90s.
Later in his life, he became a video game streamer. He had been living in Australia before immigrating to the United States.
Los Angeles was besieged by out-of-control blazes burning on multiple fronts, with Hollywood events including a glitzy awards show and a Pamela Anderson film premiere canceled as firefighters battled nearby flames whipped up by hurricane-force winds.
Hundreds of homes were destroyed in the swanky Pacific Palisades area, a favorite spot for celebrities where multimillion-dollar houses nestle on beautiful hillsides, while another inferno devastated parts of Altadena, to the east.
A-list actors, musicians, and other celebrities were among the tens of thousands affected.
Several major Hollywood events were abruptly called off due to the disaster, including the annual Critics Choice Awards gala, which honors the year's best in film and television and is attended by dozens. It was moved from Jan. 12 to Jan. 26.
Filming of Los Angeles shows like Grey's Anatomy, Hacks, and Jimmy Kimmel Live were paused, while the Universal Studios theme park was closed for the day due to the extreme winds and fire conditions. (with reports from AFP)
