Neighbours in Porirua saved an unconscious man from a house fire last night after they heard his smoke alarm.
The middle-aged man had passed out in his lounge on Bedford St due to a pre-existing medical condition when his dinner caught fire in the kitchen at about 6pm, Porirua Fire Station Officer Craig Gold said.
The neighbours raced inside and took a flaming pot off the man’s stove and carried the man from the Housing New Zealand House, saving his life, Mr Gold said.
”The pot would have been flaming and the house was totally smoke-logged, so it’s building up with flammable gasses. It’s a best guess, but you’re probably looking at two or three minutes before the kitchen erupted in flame,” Mr Gold said.
”We let them know [afterwards], ‘If you hadn’t pulled this guy out he wouldn’t be around’. They did a fantastic job.”
Unattended cooking was the most common cause of house fires in New Zealand, Mr Gold said.
”If he didn’t have a smoke detector in his house we would have been turning up to a fatal house fire.”
The man was treated at the scene by Wellington Free Ambulance for smoke inhalation.
– The Dominion Post – ANTONIO BRADLEY
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