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Burns take the puff out of urge to smoke

Oct 30, 2009 | Associated Press | Taranaki Daily News

A New Plymouth man reckons he'll quit smoking for a while after surviving an inferno caused when he lit a cigarette in his car next to a leaking LPG cylinder.

Ray Miles (23) is in Waikato Hospital's burns unit recovering from severely burned hands and arms suffered in the accident early on Saturday morning.

Despite the pain of the burns, he was still able to joke with family at his bedside yesterday.

"He says he won't be smoking for a while," the hospital's communications director, Mary Anne Gill, said on behalf of the family.

About midnight, Mr Miles had put the LPG cylinder on the passenger seat beside him intending to get it filled.

But when the service station told him it was too late to do so, he went for a drive, parked at Back Beach to look at the ocean and the city lights and have a cigarette - unaware the barbecue-sized LPG cylinder was leaking.

"He's seeing it as a good warning and wants to tell people don't put an LPG cylinder in the front seat and definitely don't smoke anywhere near them," Mrs Gill said.

Mr Miles does not remember getting out of the car before it was totally engulfed in flames but recalls walking to the road to flag down a car to get help.

His mother, Joy Mischeski, his grandmother Beverley Anderson (Eltham) and his brother Damien Le Breton are all at his bedside.

Mr Miles' extensively burned hands are causing the most concern. He is scheduled to have an operation tomorrow. Surgeons plan to take skin from his legs to graft on to his hands.

The swelling in his throat was no longer a concern and the ventilator had been removed. He is finding it an effort to talk.

Yesterday both the New Plymouth Fire Brigade and police said the fire was an accident and there were no suspicious circumstances.

New Plymouth fire chief Pat Fitzell added that the safest way to transport LPG cylinders was to secure them in the boot. "We wouldn't recommend putting them inside the passenger area, that's for sure."