Gas explosion burns woman
SOUTH Gippsland Shire Council mayor Cr Ray Argento and councillor, Cr Jeremy Rich, were part of a dramatic day at Walkerville last week.
A woman aged 45 was airlifted to the Alfred Hospital in a serious condition with burns after an LP gas cylinder ignited last Thursday, January 19 at Walkerville Caravan Park.
The woman sustained burns to her arm, leg and face as she was attempting to change over the cylinder.
She was outside her camper trailer at the time of the explosion, while inside were her husband and daughter, who both managed to escape the camper trailer before it was burnt to the ground. The family lives in Melbourne.
No other campers or sites were affected by the explosion.
The fire also spread to a small area of scrub and grass according to the CFA’s Simon Bloink, the rostered duty officer for district 9.
Campers and the manager of the caravan park were quickly on the scene, throwing buckets of water and using the supplied hose reels at the park to extinguish the fires at the camper trailer and the surrounding bush.
Cr Argento, an ex Toora CFA captain, was asked to be the appointed fire investigator. Meanwhile Cr Rich, who has property close to the caravan park, was asked if he would allow access for both a road and air ambulance.
Fire crews from both Fish Creek and Tarwin Lower attended the fire, conducting remedial work and hosing down the area which had mostly been extinguished.
Manager of the caravan park for the last 10 years, Cameron Walker, praised the campers who immediately stepped into action to help the family when the explosion occurred.
“I had a call from a fisherman and a number of others in the park as soon as it happened and ran down to assist, while many others in the park put their own safety aside to help,” he said.
“This is the first time we’ve had an incident of this nature involving a gas bottle in my time here and I am pleased the fire plans we’ve adopted here worked well in this instance.”
One of the campers who stepped in to help, farmer John Walsh from Fish Creek, sustained some burns to his feet when he unselfishly went in to assist. He was taken to South Gippsland Hospital at Foster by ambulance for treatment.
Demolished: a camper trailer was completely destroyed in the fire at Walkerville last Thursday.
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Jan 24 2017. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
