Most people are fully aware of the dangers of lighting up and smoking a cigarette in bed. But the dangers couldn’t have been more evident than they were in a recent incident which occurred in Kent, England.
The person who experienced the fire was seventy nine years old, and had apparently lit a cigarette to smoke while she was tucked up in bed on a Sunday night.
She didn’t fall asleep with the cigarette still lit though – she actually dropped it onto her bedding.
But rather than call the fire brigade the lady decided she would simply put out the fire herself. That may not sound too alarming but when you consider that this wasn’t just a few tiny flames you will be amazed that she didn’t just pick up the phone and call for assistance when it first happened.
According to the fire and rescue services who were eventually called the next morning, the elderly lady had got the mattress and bedding out of her bedroom and put them in the bathroom instead. Now there aren’t a lot of flammable items in the average bathroom, but the fire was bad enough that it did a lot of damage.
A neighbour discovered what had happened the morning after the blaze occurred, and they called for help to make sure the blaze was out. Even then, several hours after it had happened, there were still some embers to be found which could have sparked off another fire.
So what kind of damage was done in the bathroom once the mattress was in there? Well, obviously the mattress itself was completely burnt to nothing – a picture in the local paper depicted it as a mass of metal coils and very little else. The bottom of the bed, which the lady had left in the bedroom, had also been severely burned over half of the base area.
But in the bathroom the fire was bad enough that the bathroom window itself shattered. Because the window was double glazed the frame melted too, leaving quite a mess behind. Even some of the porcelain bathroom fittings cracked because of the intense heat.
Luckily the woman did survive the incident, although it was obvious that she should simply have left the property and called the fire brigade instantly. She was very lucky that she got out the next day suffering only from smoke inhalation and no burns or other injuries.
It is a harsh story for her to learn, but it has probably made lots of other people of all ages aware of the dangers of smoking a cigarette in bed. If the lady had fallen asleep, anything could have happened and the results may have easily been even worse than they were.
So if you do smoke, make sure you get your last one in before going to bed at night. And if the worst does happen, let the fire brigade take care of it instead of doing what this lady did and trying to sort the fire out yourself.