Hero neighbour Lewis Abley, who lives on Fordlands Road right next to the incident, told YorkMix what happened.
Neighbour Lewis Abley. Photograph: YorkMix
“I was in my kitchen and I heard an explosion. I’ve run upstairs into the bedroom to have a look over the fences, and you could just sort of ‘hear’ the heat – I thought someone had gone through a gas main.
“So I’ve run back outside, got on top of my garage, looked over into the back. You could just see the rippling heat and hear it.
“A bloke was standing away from this ripple of heat. One side, all of his clothes had burnt off.
“So I shouted, ‘are you OK?’ and then ran round, jumped over the fence, ran into the garden.
“He’d tried to douse down everything because it was within like a metre or two away from the fence, the hedge, those conifers there, and his shed.
“What he’d actually done is he’d drilled into a five-foot-high gas cylinder that was full to the brim of gas, and it had flame-throwered him, and then fallen to the floor and was projecting flames towards everything in the garden.
“So I got the hose off him, hosed everything around it, and then saw to him as his wife rung an ambulance and the fire brigade.
“We got him in the sink and put a chair behind him because he was in shock. He’s taken it all the skin off one side of his arm.”
Incident location
Lewis said there had been no damage to nearby properties, “but everything around it is singed”.
He added: “Luckily, he started hosing it, and when I went round, he started seeing to himself. So I continued hosing this stuff down, then ran in to make sure he was all right.”
Paramedics treated the casualty at the scene. It’s believed he’s now been taken to hospital.
Earlier, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service put out this statement: “Due to reports that cylinders are involved, a safety cordon has been established and a number of nearby properties have been evacuated as a precaution.
“Crews are expected to remain at the scene for some time. Please avoid the area.”
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