In the early hours of June 14, 2017, she woke to the sound of him moving around. Sean had been disturbed at about 1.30am by sirens and what sounded like a car alarm. In fact, he quickly realised it was the horrifying wail of scores of smoke alarms chirping in unison. "Grenfell is on fire," he told his wife. "I'm going to see what I can do to help." Gaby rushed to the window and saw flames racing up the side of the 24-storey tower block. Deeply shocked, her thoughts immediately turned to the children and families she knew who lived there.
From the start it looked bad - there was going to be massive loss of life. It was going up very quickly
Gaby Doherty
"From the start it looked bad - there was going to be massive loss of life. It was going up very quickly," she recalled.
"I had a front row seat as night turned to day and the tower turned from light, bright flames to dark, charred space, fire still burning."
Outside a police cordon around the tower, crowds had already started to gather. Some wanted to go to help.
Many were on mobile phones speaking to people already trapped in Grenfell. Among those presumed trapped were Sean and Gaby's friends, an Eritrean family who had hosted a party for their three-year-old daughter Amaya a few months earlier. Gaby, unable to raise them on the phone, feared the worst.
Also trapped was a man on the 13th floor who had slept through attempts by his neighbour Miguel Alves, 51, to get everyone out.
Miguel and his wife Fatima, 49, were among the first to realise the building was on fire while returning home in the early hours of the morning after taking visitors back to their hotel.
They shared the lift with two men going to the fourth floor. When the doors opened, all they could see was billowing smoke.
72 people lost their lives in the fire two years ago (Image: Peter Summers/Getty Images)
They got out of the elevator immediately, a decision that may well have saved many lives. Miguel, a chauffeur, climbed the stairs to the 13th floor, while Fatima returned to the garage, where her husband had left his mobile in their car, to call for help. But the first firefighters were already arriving.
When she asked if it was safe to return to the building, they told her: "No, you stay here."
"But my husband and children are in the flat!" she exclaimed.
They instructed her to tell her family to stay inside the flat and to close the doors and windows.
She buzzed her flat on the front door intercom but when Miguel picked up, they couldn't hear each other. Had they been able to talk, he might have stayed put. Instead, he came down with their son and daughter followed by their neighbours.
Later, it would emerge no one from the 13th floor died, thanks to Miguel Alves.
Meanwhile, Sean had woken Father Alan Everett, the local Church of England vicar. Together they opened St Clements Church, a few hundred yards from the west London tower.
Author Gaby Doherty (Image: NC)
They tried to find the muster point for evacuated people to gather but police didn't seem to know - the first inkling that there wasn't a coordinated response.
Once people realised the church was open, they started to flock there. One of the first to arrive was a firefighter. He went in very briefly,
