Pregnant mum flees home after village gas leak
Published 18 May 2012 08:55
1 Comment
A PREGNANT Crombie mum fled in fear for her family's safety after a gas leak forced villagers to evacuate their homes.
Jenna Davidson spoke of her horror after spotting green fumes spewing into the air following an accident on the A985 road through the village.
Emergency services sped to the scene after a Ford Transit van careered into a gas installation at the western side of Crombie around 6pm on Monday.
Police, ambulance and 25 fire fighters from five crews descended on the village amid fears there could be an explosion.
Jenna, of Central Road, and one-year-old son Callum were among more than 20 people who police told to abandon their homes and set up camp in Crombie Community Centre.
She said, "At 6.30pm I took Callum to bed then at 7pm the door went. The police were telling us we had to get out.
"They explained it was the gas and said it was urgent and we had to leave.
"There were fire engines with the blue light flashing, police cars and hundreds of police in the area.
"You could see green gas pouring out like a fountain and I thought, 'Oh my God'.
"It was worrying as I didn't know what was happening and you heard all different stories, like if you left Crombie then you wouldn't get back in."
A 100-metre cordon was set up around the source as the main road through Crombie was blocked for three hours, forcing drivers to divert through Crossford and Cairneyhill.
Gas engineers isolated the valve and, after removing the van, the road was reopened with no one being injured.
However, for Jenna and her family the agony continued as, despite being allowed to return home after 9pm, they were left without heating overnight.
"She continued, "We had no heating and it was just freezing. Me and Connor were wrapped up in bed and my partner was on the couch.
"I am expecting in August so I'm lucky there isn't a newborn right now and that I can wrap Connor up and he can sleep right through it.
"We only moved in at the start of May. Other homes in the area have electricity for heating and hot water but because ours is new we have gas."
Dunfermline fire station commander Dave Wishart said, "There was a fair amount of gas coming out but it was a blustery night and the benefit of that was it dispersed the gas.
"Monday was actually a very good example of everyone working together to deal with a potentially major incident.
"If there was no wind and the gas had stayed fairly low, someone could have had their gas fire on or been smoking a cigarette and half of Crombie's gone.
"It's one of those jobs that could have gone very wrong but we train for major incidents with other agencies and it worked well."
Inspector Jim McLuskey was grateful to the public for their help, stating, "I would like to thank the local people of Crombie for their co-operation and forbearance.
"By their quiet and ready acceptance of our advice, we were able to evacuate the immediate area quickly and effectively with no panic."
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Ooosh!
31 posts
May 22, 10:54
Report commentWho is Connor?? At the start of the article it mentions her one year old son Callum, then out of nowhere "me and Connor were wrapped up in bed and my partner was on the couch".
Good continuity...
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