A Shropshire woman was today thanking the stroke of luck she says saved her life after fire struck at her home in High Ercall.
Lynn Wickson was asleep in bed late at night when she was suddenly woken by the sound of her smoke alarm. She ran into the smoke-filled living room of her bungalow in Crossfields and found her Christmas decorations ablaze.
She fought the blaze with a blanket and finally managed to smother the flames with a large cushion but not before she suffered burns to her feet and hands. She was later taken to Princess Royal Hospital in Telford but was allowed home after treatment.
“I can’t believe how lucky I was because only a week or so earlier firefighters had knocked on my door and asked if they could fit a new smoke alarm in my house,” Mrs Wickson said.
“They told me that were going round the village fitting new smoke alarms because someone had recently died in a fire in High Ercall. It was pure luck. If they hadn’t knocked on my door and fitted that new alarm I could have died in the fire,” Mrs Wickson added.
The blaze caused extensive smoke damage to Mrs Wickson’s living room and at its height a mantelpiece mirror exploded in the heat.
This week she got a chance to say a personal thank you when she met Shropshire Fire and Rescue’s Safety in the Home Manager, Rabinder Dhami.
“Mrs Wickson’s terrifying experience underlines just how important working smoke alarms are. After an earlier fatal fire in High Ercall our crews knocked on every door and fitted new alarms. Luckily, Mrs Wickson was one of them and it probably saved her life,” Mr Dhami said.
