Mary Jengo made frantic efforts to rescue her colleagues when fire gutted Moi Girls' School, Nairobi, during the wee hours of Saturday morning.
But as fate would have it, she is among the eight students whose charred bodies are set to undergo DNA sampling starting today.
Jengo, according to her aunt Ann Emali, rescued most of her colleagues from the inferno but as she tried to escape, smoke had engulfed the whole dormitory.
It is at this stage that fire caught up with her, inflicting her serious burns.
"She was special to me as she was named after my grandmother. When we last talked, she was in jovial mood," Emali said as she fought off tears yesterday.
She was at Chiromo Mortuary, seeking many unanswered questions.
But she was not alone.
Beatrice Busena too had many questions, following the death of her 14-year-old niece Mary Ombuyu.
"She rescued those who were still inside and we thought she will be okay. We expected her to help us in the near future," she said.
Busena had been told Ombuyu would be referred to Kenyatta National Hospital from Nairobi Women's Hospital on Sunday, but she died the same day.
Teachers had told the two guardians their nieces tried to save other girls.
National Disaster Management Unit deputy director Pius Masai appealed to the families to be patient, saying the process of identifying the eight bodies will start from 8am today.
Masai, who was with University of Nairobi acting chairman for Department of Anatomy Prof Peter Gichangi, said arrangements are being made to identify the bodies that were burned beyond recognition.
"The government pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor has organised his team and are ready to carry out DNA sampling and postmortem. But this exercise is not picking on today because of logistic arrangements of himself and his team and they have agreed that it will pick up tomorrow [today] September 5, 2017 starting from 8am," he said.
Masai said all agencies supposed to keep support have been deployed to Chiromo Mortuary. He told the girls' relatives to come today.
Masai urged the public and well-wishers to help the surviving students by providing food and non-food items, adding that some lost all their belongings.
Prof Gichangi said biological parents should go to Chiromo to give specimens for DNA testing.
But in the event that the mother or the father have died, siblings can also give specimens.
Bodies that are identifiable can be viewed and identified before a postmortem is carried out, he said.
The DNA results should be out within two weeks, but it could take up to a month or longer depending on quality of DNA samples, Gichangi said.
Courtesy