Neighbours rescue woman from burning house at Olympia Palms
Hannelie Swanepoel (50) was hospitalised on Sunday afternoon after she was trapped in her Olympia Palms home when it went up in flames.
Due to a stroke on January 14, which left her paralysed, she was unable to escape the blaze and had to wait for a neighbour to brave the flames and rescue her.
Her partner Gerhard Simon (50) was in Kempton Park when the fire broke out and says he immediately returned home after a neighbour alerted him to the fire.
Arriving 20 minutes later, he found their home destroyed, Swanepoel having already been rescued from the blaze.
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He says she allegedly sustained third degree burns to her upper body and, when he visited her at the Far East Rand Hospital (FERH) on Monday, she was in a lot of pain.
Lulu Botha (46), one of the neighbours, says she heard Hannelie’s son Dewald Swanepoel (17) calling for help just after 3pm on Sunday.
“I rushed to the house and saw smoke coming from the house,” she says.
Some of the neighbours allegedly broke the windows and the door to try and gain entry to the house.
“We carried buckets of water to the house to try extinguish the fire, but by then the whole house was on fire,” says Botha.
Botha recalls that somebody entered the house covered in a wet blanket to rescue Swanepoel from her bedroom.
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She says Swanepoel’s clothes were pitch black from the smoke and ash.
Although her nose was bleeding, neighbours originally thought she was dead when she was brought out of the house.
Her neighbours immediately attended to her until paramedics where able to take over her care.
They treated her on the scene and transported her to FERH.
The Ekurhuleni Disaster and Emergency Services (DEMS) arrived within minutes of the fire being reported by a neighbour.
William Ntladi DEMS spokesman says when the fire truck and ambulance arrived at the burning house they found the woman had already been removed from the house by her neighbours.
“Firefighters put out the fire quickly and found no one else in the house,” he says.
Ntladi says the fire may have started at an electrical socket in one of the bedrooms and soon spread through the house.
“Our safety officers are still investigating the exact cause of the fire,” he says.
No other injuries were reported.
FERH spokesman Hendrik Buda confirms she was admitted to the hospital after suffering supeficial burns to her back and left thigh.
“Dressing has been applied and fluid administered to the patient.
“The patient is currently stable and is not a candidate for a burns unit,” Buda says.
