Neighbour rescued woman after deadly Edinburgh house explosion | UK News

A heroic neighbour has described how he pulled a woman free from a burning house after it was destroyed in an explosion.

Steven MacLennan was relaxing at home when a huge blast rocked a nearby street in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Friday night.

The 50-year-old army reservist sprinted to the scene in Baberton Mains Avenue where he found a home had been completely demolished.

Buried among the rubble was a 43-year-old woman who was injured and crying out for help.

As flames burned around the trapped woman, Steven bravely crawled through a gap in the debris to find she was pinned to the ground underneath the wreckage.

Using his 20 years of experience and training in the armed forces, he was able to help her out of the collapsed property to safety.

An 84-year-old man, named locally as James Smith, was killed in the suspected gas explosion at around 10.25pm.

‘We were just watching TV when we heard this incredibly loud bang,’ Steven said.

‘All the doors and windows in the house shook. I came out the house and there were quite a few people in the street already.

‘Whatever it was had happened in a street round the corner, so I ran to find out what was going on.

‘It was just carnage. People running about in chaos. Like being in a bubble. But my training did help.

‘I shouted at her to ask if she could feel the fire, and she said she could. There was a pipe which was gushing out water and I was able to bend it and direct the water onto the flames.

‘It was quite a flexible pipe, and I was able to douse the flames and put them out before they could get to her.’

Despite being able to communicate with the woman, Steven said she was still ‘pinned’ by what he thought was a cupboard on her legs.

‘I was able to get it off, but she was still trapped,’ he said.

‘I asked her if she could move her legs and she could, and she was able to crawl out.’

As Steven freed the woman, other neighbours arrived and were able to help another injured man to safety.

Residents also helped to clear a path for the hurt man and woman to get out before emergency services arrived and took them to hospital.

A Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘Emergency services attended and a 43-year-old woman and 54-year-old man were taken to hospital for treatment.

‘Several properties were evacuated as a precaution and the road remains closed.

‘There are no suspicious circumstances and we are continuing to work alongside our partner agencies.’

Steven, who also runs self-catering properties in his day job, said he had taken part in training exercises which had given him some experience of sudden life-or-death situations.

He added: ‘I’ve never experienced anything like that before, but we do training exercises where we don’t know what’s coming, and we learn first aid.’

Last month, a 78-year-old man was killed in a gas explosion at a bungalow in Derbyshire.

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