Two women have been injured in New Zealand after a campervan gas bottle blew up while they were cooking dinner.
The travellers – both in their 60s – received burns to their faces and arms. One is in the emergency department of Dunedin Hospital with serious burns, the other in a moderate condition.
Police have praised ‘quick-thinking’ campers who helped the two Swiss women by taking them into a nearby lake in the aftermath of the blast. Campers at Lake Hayes Motor Home Reserve, near Arrowtown, initially doused the women with water before helping them into neighbouring Lake Hayes, were they stayed until an ambulance arrived.
“Their hair was very badly singed and their skin was very red,” a witness told Fairfax Media.
While the force of the blast blew the campervan’s windows out and split its sides, the vehicle did not catch fire.
This is not the first incident of its kind and caravanners and motorhomers are regularly urged to exercise extreme caution when handling or using gas bottles.
Just a month ago, two people were badly burnt when a gas bottle exploded at Rocky Point campsite north of Cairns.
And last year, a man suffered burns to 80% of his body after a gas bottle exploded in his caravan at Casino’s Glen Villa Resort.
