Emergency crew rescues mum and girl
Published: July 3, 2007
Firefighters had to smash down doors to rescue a mum and her two-year-old daughter as their Telford home filled with smoke today.
A neighbour raised the alarm after hearing smoke detectors going off in the mid-terrace property in Matlock Avenue, Dawley, at 4am.
Firefighters rushed to the property and banged on the door to wake the occupants. When they got no response they smashed their way in.
Two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus found the woman and her two-year-old asleep upstairs.
The pair were carried to safety and treated for smoke inhalation by paramedics at the scene.
Firefighters said the smoke came from smouldering food in a microwave.
Sub-officer Peter Hawkins, incident commander, from Telford Central fire station, said: “The mother and child must have been in a deep sleep and simply failed to hear the activated smoke alarms that were in working order.
“The prompt actions of the neighbour prevented what could have been a tragic loss of two lives.
“Smoke can be a killer, just like fire itself, and this is yet another example of smoke alarms saving lives, albeit on this occasion in an unusual manner.”
Mr Hawkins said there was no obvious signs of fire when they arrived, apart from a haze on the ground floor.
He said he believed the woman had cooked the food in the microwave, but had forgotten about it and gone to bed.
But he thought the microwave might have been faulty.
Meanwhile, firefighters were called to a flat fire at a three-storey building in High Street, Newport, at 8.05am today.
They took just under 40 minutes to bring the blaze under control.
And a fire which caused a window to smash and damaged a door in Botany Bay Close, Aqueduct, Telford, is being treated as suspicious by police.
The owner’s 21-year-old daughter was in the house when the fire happened on Saturday at 11.20pm but no-one was injured.
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