A HEARTBROKEN mother has revealed the devastating final voicemail her son left before he tragically died in the LA wildfires.
Carol Smith missed her son’s final call to her as he battled to save his beloved home that was “his life” before succumbing to the heat and smoke.
Randall ‘Randy’ Miod, 55, a popular Malibu party animal, died after the Pacific Palisades Fire broke out near him on Tuesday January 7.
His heartbroken mother told People that Randall would always call her when a fire broke out in the 30 years he lived there.
Carol revealed she was wracked with fear when Randall called her on Tuesday about the approaching fire.
She said: “He was almost in tears on Tuesday when I talked to him, and he said: ‘Mom, there’s another fire in the Palisades. I can see the smoke.’
“I said: ‘Randy, grab your cat and go to a shelter. Don’t make me worry.'”
“I said, ‘Randy, grab your cat and go to a shelter. Don’t make me worry.’ ”
Randy called Carol again later on, leaving his final words to his mother in a heart-wrenching voicemail.
Carol said: “The last thing he said to me was, ‘Pray for the Palisades and pray for Malibu, and I love you.’
“He called me at home and I wasn’t here, and he left a message on my phone, the same thing that we talked about when he called me on my cellphone.
“I have that message, and I will keep it forever,” the grieving mother promised.
Carol described how in the past, Randall would choose to stay at his house during previous wildfires in California, thinking that he could use a hose to wet down his property and defend it.
He moved into a rented studio apartment affectionately known as “Crab Shack” in his 20s, and later bought the house attached to it.
Carol said that Randy loved the house and refused to sell it because he “had so many good memories there”, and so was desperate to save it.
But tragically, Randall was found dead behind the house by emergency services and Wednesday, January 8.
Carol said: “I don’t think that he ever really knew what hit him.
“The detectives said that this kind of a fire, or any kind of a fire, just sucks the wind out of you.
“They did the autopsy, and he had enough lung tissue left to determine that he died from smoke inhalation and thermal heat.”
Miod’s community have remembered him as a hero and icon of Malibu who was often out in the surf and opened his home to “anybody”.
One tribute described how Randall “loved his house on PCH, otherwise known as the Crab Shack, so much so, that he stayed in the evacuation”.
Another said: “‘Generations of surfers walked these uneven splinter infested floors through the years.
“The inside of the house look like Salvador Dali painted it.”
Randall is one of at least 25 people who have died in the ongoing LA fires, whilst another 23 are currently missing.
Police have brought in sniffer dogs to comb the ashes of over 12,000 home in search of the remains of victims.
Many people are still without electricity, and many others are feeling scared due to the looming danger posed by the powerful winds that could fan the flames even further.
A recent, saddening video captured the chief of the LA firefighters breaking down in tears during a live television interview as he discussed the insufficient number of staff in the fire department.
