Patsy Harris found herself making a trip to Dallas this week that no mother wants to make.

The Alabama woman got the news at work Monday afternoon: Her son, Charles Harris, 40, had been severely injured while working on a home renovation near White Rock Lake.

He was covered in third-degree burns at the Parkland Memorial Hospital burn-care unit.

Harris knew she didn't have much time to reach her son, a divorced father of two boys.

But she couldn't know at the time how many people would help her as she traveled more than 600 miles from Birmingham to the city her son had learned to love in the two years he lived here.

"God put angels around us from the time we left home until we got to Dallas," she said.

She and her husband, Charles Harris Sr., raced to the airport and were placed on the next flight to Dallas.

While they waited, a minister who saw her tears prayed with them.

Fearful that her son wouldn't get to hear his mother's voice again, Harris asked Parkland social worker Kay Garten to bring a phone to him.

"I told him how much I loved him. I said, 'Baby, just hold on. We're going to get there as quick as I possibly can,' " she said.

Garten said the conversation brought peace to his hospital room.

"I was a mom then more than a social worker," Garten said. "Tears were just rolling off my cheeks."

Onboard the plane, flight attendants moved the couple to first class, coincidentally in the seat in front of a Parkland nurse who reassured her that her son was receiving the best possible care.

Word of the accident spread among the passengers. Handwritten prayers were passed up to the couple.

Once they were off the plane, passengers rushed to catch up to them.

"Usually people are just so busy and in a hurry," Harris said. "These people just came and surrounded and hugged us and loved us."

The couple made it to the hospital just before 8 p.m. Doctors were surprised Harris was still alive. He was using flammable liquids to remove adhesives from a floor in a house on Erin Drive when something ignited the fumes and covered his body in flames.

When the Harrises entered, he was unresponsive. Doctors told them that hearing is the last thing to go. Chaplains and the couple began quoting scripture and singing "Amazing Grace."

"He held on until I told him to let go," she said.

Charles Harris Jr. died just before midnight Monday.

The Harrises made it back to Alabama on Tuesday, but the outpouring of support wasn't over.

After hearing that the family was taking out a loan to bring back his remains, neighbors who live near the site of the explosion, along with the Christian Firefighters Association, started collecting money to help, said Dallas Fire-Rescue chaplain David Smith.

"To think that there are still wonderful, godly, caring people in this world, and we have been recipients of that," Harris said. "It's just overwhelming."

Donations can be directed to Chaplain Services at the Christian Firefighters Association. The address is 1551 Baylor St., Suite 200, Dallas, TX 75226.