George Mathias
A BRITISH couple are urging people to ensure they have a working smoke alarm after they cheated death at their Torrevieja retirement home.
On April 20 at 3.15pm, Lynda and Robin Watkins, originally from Bournemouth, had just finished the main course of a late lunch when suddenly their smoke alarm went off in their house on Calle Alange in the San Luis area of the Costa Blanca city.
A huge fire had started in a room on the second floor of their house that leads down into the garden after torrential rain leaked through the ceiling and into a plug socket in the room.
Photo: Lynda Watkins
Lynda, 71 and a retired furniture remover, went to check the room and immediately saw flames roaring up the walls.
“It was terrifying,” she told the Olive Press.
“Even our cat Milli screamed in terror.”
She immediately phoned the fire brigade and then attempted to use the house fire extinguisher to douse the flames, but it proved useless.
Photo: Lynda Watkins
“It’s only a tiny thing and it was barely spraying out anything. I thought this could be it.”
Thankfully, just as the blaze began to spread and within a few minutes of calling emergency services, four policemen arrived on the scene.
Robin Watkins, 79, a former glass merchant, has not been able to walk since a traffic accident in Torquay in 1999 and Lynda was terrified he would be stuck.
Photo: Lynda Watkins.
But the four officers each grabbed a limb and managed to carry Robin out safe and sound along with Lynda and Siamese cat Milli.
The fire team arrived within five minutes of the call, putting out the fire within a couple of minutes but the house was left almost entirely blackened by the blaze.
“The smoke alarm saved us undoubtedly,” Lynda said.
“I urge everyone to make sure they have one and that it works.”
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