Vehicle and House Fire Devastates Quadriplegic

LETHBRIDGE:  What started out as a beautiful warm evening that prompted a woman and her husband to take a drive resulted in the pair losing their van and being displaced from their home.

May Robertson, a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair, had taken an early evening drive with her husband and returned home.  A short time later, May smelled fire but, said she didn’t think anything of it, since her neighbours sometimes have back yard fires.  However, the smell intensified and when she wheeled to the window to see what the cause was, she saw her van on fire in the driveway. Right at that time, the home’s smoke detector went off.

May and her husband called 911 and say the fire department arrived within 5 to 6 minutes. By that time, they managed to get out of the house, as flames started to catch the home’s carport area.

The fire started in the couples mini-van, which is equipped with a wheelchair lift, and then spread to the house in the 100-block of 14th street north.  Shortly after the fire was out, Crew Commander Rob Chollack noted fire crews were on scene quickly and managed to keep the fire from spreading into the home.  However, there is some fire damage to the carport and smoke damage inside the house.