A man died after a gas explosion at his home in Longridge. Inquest hears he deliberately tampered with his oven, but family says he intended to fall asleep.
A dad-of-two who died five days after a major gas explosion at his home in Longridge 'only intended to fall asleep' after tampering with his cooker, an inquest heard. Rob Fenwick's neighbours were awakened to a huge explosion in Wheatley Drive on the morning of Sunday September 1. James Waterman, who lives on the corner of the road, was cleaning his car when he felt a huge gust of wind from behind him.
'As I got to cleaning the front bumper I felt what I can only describe as a 'whoosh',' Mr Waterman later told police. 'There was no smoke or fire, just a pile of rubble.' A confused Mr Waterman, who said he was 'dumbfounded', then saw a semi-naked Rob, whose burnt clothes were later found inside the house. Rob, who was originally from Blackburn, was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital where medics discovered that he had suffered deep burns which covered 30 per cent of his body surface area. The 49-year-old was then transferred to the burns centre at Whiston Hospital in Prescot. Despite his condition initially being described as 'stable' over the following five days Rob deteriorated and he died, from multiple organ failure, at 7.41pm on September 6. An inquest held today (Thursday December 19) at Preston Coroner's Court heard that Rob had deliberately tampered with his oven. However, in a statement, his family said they were sure he would not have intended to cause the explosion and simply would have wanted to 'fall asleep' . Rob's sister-in-law Emma said in the statement: 'We found out about the explosion on Facebook. We saw it was on Wheatley Drive and suspected it was Rob's house. If he was the cause he would have wanted to go to sleep rather than cause an explosion.' In the aftermath of the explosion, which caused moderate structural damage to seven other homes in Wheatley Drive, Health and Safety Executive gas engineer Steve Critchlow carried out an investigation. His report concluded the oven had deliberately been tampered with
GAS EXPLOSION FATAL ACCIDENT INQUEST TAMPERING DEATH
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