Woman burnt trying to put out taxi set ablaze A woman in Dunmurry has described how she suffered burns to her hands after trying to save her husband’s taxi which was targeted in an arson attack.
Maureen Burns, her husband and two children were inside their family home at Glenbawn Place when a vehicle parked outside was set alight at around 4am on Saturday.
The couple were woken by the sound of breaking glass.
“The dogs started barking and my husband jumped out of bed to look out the window,” she explained.
“I knew there was somebody at the door because of the dog running down the stairs.
“I run straight out the door to the back of the car, because I thought they had smashed my back window in my car.”
Two vehicles were destroyed in the blaze, despite Maureen’s efforts to save their taxi.
“Standing at the back of the car, and the back of my husband’s taxi was smashed and inside the taxi I could see flickers of flames,” she said.
“I went to the side of the taxi and opened the door and there was like a five-gallon drum left inside my husband’s taxi.”
“I tried to save the taxi and tried to pull the flaming, burning plastic out.”
She continued: “My husband was shouting ‘don’t touch it, don’t touch it’, but all I wanted to do was save the taxi because I didn’t want it to burn, I mean that’s our livelihood.
“As I was trailing the drum, unbeknownst to me, the petrol was dribbling and the next thing I knew, big flames started coming towards me from the car and it went round my feet, the flames went up and travelled right up to the top of the drum and burnt my hand and I dropped the drum.”
She ran into the house and dialled 999 before escaping with her family out the back of the house.
“I thought I had saved the taxi but then I saw the taxi going up in smoke,” the distraught woman told UTV.
“I was out the back with my kids, and I could see the smoke coming up over the roof and I thought my house was burning down.”
Maureen said the heat of the fire cracked and melted the house’s windows and if fire crews had not have arrived when they did, the damage could have been much worse.
She believes that an attempt was made to break into the house as well.
She said: “God knows what they were trying to do, did they want to pour petrol in the back window? Burn us at the front, burn at the back, me and my husband and my two kids in the house, what kind of people are they? They are sick, evil people.”
The ordeal has left Maureen very shaken.
“It was the scariest thing that I have ever went through in my life,” she said.
Police have appealed for anyone who saw suspicious activity in the area at the time of the incident to contact them on the non-emergency number 101.
source:
http://www.u.tv/News/2015/06/20/Woman-b ... laze-39461
Login
Register
FAQ
