A woman is lucky to be alive after her new sunbed started getting ‘too hot’ – then burst into flames and caused #1,000 damage to her home.
Mum-of-one Christine Bradley, 56, had rented the device from a tanning salon for £80 and planned to get a nice tan ahead of a holiday in Gran Canaria.
She lay down on the sunbed but within moments realised its lamps were getting ‘unbearably’ hot.
Christine knew something was not right when she could only handle the heat for 15 minutes, rather than the half hour she planned.
The heat got so intense she eventually had to jump off and then watched in horror as it burst into flames.
Christine, of Hartlepool, fled to her neighbour’s home in her dressing gown and dialled 999 as the blaze spread through her spare room.
The fire caused £1,000 worth of damage – including destroying all her newly purchased holiday clothes, TV, carpets, wallpaper, blinds and a window.
The fire also burnt into the ceiling, cutting the house’s electricity for days.
Christine said: ”I only got it delivered on Friday. It was five minutes between getting off and smelling smoke.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am. Five more minutes and I dread to think what could have happened. I wouldn’t have got out.
“Normally they take time to warm up, but this one didn’t – it was really quite hot straight away. I thought ‘this is too hot’, so I got out.
” I went to get a towel, but the next thing I looked up and flames were coming from the top of it. If I had been on five minutes later I would have been dead.
“I’ll never in my life use sunbeds again – the experience was just horrendous.”
Shop-worker Christine rented the sunbed from Golden Brown tanning salon in Hartlepool. They declined to comment.
Bosses at Stranton Fire Station, which sent two appliances to the scene at 4pm Saturday, and said Christine has been very “lucky”.
