News

A late night explosion in Mosgiel has left a woman “housebound” after her mobility scooter burst into flames whilst charging at her home on Green Street.

The Otago Daily Times reported that Eleanor Moore (68) awoke at 11pm on the evening of Friday 19 July to find her “only means of transport” roaring with flames in her carport. A distressed Moore stood and watched from her Housing NZ flat as her $4,000 Invacare scooter came to a fiery end.

Neighbour Wayne Sheridan was quickly on the scene and called the fire brigade, conveniently located two doors down from Moore’s house. Sheridan helped Moore from the house, soon after which she collapsed from shock in his driveway. After calling an ambulance, Sheridan said that Moore remained at his house for around 45 minutes with St Johns, and was “obviously quite distraught about the whole thing.”

Moore came to and was able to put her scooter’s fiery demise aside and appreciate what she still had to be thankful for. “It’s lucky me and my three cats are alive.”

Sheridan said the damage to the carport was quite significant: “half the fence [is] not there because it burned away and the carport is all black.” He also provided Critic with excellent directions to Moore’s house so that we could investigate the site for ourselves, alluding to the normalcy of nosy neighbours in small town Mosgiel.

The Mosgiel Volunteer Fire Brigade was able to extinguish the blaze in a few minutes. Senior station officer Paul Falconer said the explosions were “most probably the tyres going pop once they got hot.”

Critic’s attempts to track down Moore proved futile, although Sheridan informed us that he had already seen a replacement scooter sitting at her property. Critic suspects Moore’s inadvertent inferno nightmare has lead her to cry “YOLO” and cash in her new scooter, putting all her savings on her next game of housie.

In a poll conducted after the blaze, 80 per cent of Mosgiel residents said that they now felt unsafe on their mobility scooters.