- The ceiling fan in Mak's house went on fire one Sunday night.
- A thief forced an entry into MIL's house in Rasah.
- My biological mother broke her knee when she stumbled over a child bar meant for my half-brother's child at the toilet.
1. That night we were in Kampung Tunku. Hubby and I were both exhausted and planned on returning to Putrajaya after a nap. Next thing we knew, our helper was yelling "Pak Ustaz! Kakak! Api! Api!" Quickly woke hubby up and went down. The ceiling fan in the living hall glowed with fire as some flames dropped and crackled on the carpet beneath it.
"Air! (Water) Air!" Ayah shouted in the otherwise dark house, as Ayah had already shut the main electricity switch off. "Bawak anak-anak keluar! Keluar!" he ordered my helper
The house had partially burnt down due to a fire caused by electrical short circuit in 1987. Seeing the ceiling fan on fire caused a small chaos for a while.
Someone collected water in buckets (in the dark) and hubby was the one strong enough to hurl the water high enough to reach the high ceiling fan. I remember helping removing the carpet from beneath the blazing ceiling fan which had started dripping too.
I asked Mak who has called 999, but in the confusion everybody seemed to forget to bring our handphone. I quickly went up and groped for my handphone on the bed, found it and quickly went down. By then the fire had already been extinguished, so it was no longer necessary to call the fire engine.
"Call TNB," Mak (or was it Ayah?) instructed. I tried called the directory assistance number and asked for TNB emergency number. Was asked to call 15454, the 24/7 TNB Careline number. Could not call 15454 on my U Mobile phone, so switched to Mak's Celcom line. (In the chaos, Ayah's phone somehow got wet and could not be used) and succeeded in getting to TNB.
TNB was aware that something was wrong with the electricity supply in our house. Just when I uttered "No 8..." the guy on the line quickly finished reading out the house address. Hmm, impressive... He wanted to confirm to location of "Kampung Tunku" (in Petaling Jaya) and said that some TNB guys would be with us soon.
"Soon" turned out to be 40-50 minutes. Two guys, Siva and Ramesh, came and checked on the electricity main switch, reprimanded us for extinguishing the fire using water (as it could conduct electricity and cause electrical shock when the water reached the floor) and assured us that it was okay for us to switch on lights and all again.
While we had learned about water being electric conductor ages ago, and Ayah actually has a proper fire extinguisher in his room, none of us remembered these two facts when we first realized that the ceiling fan was on fire. (Yeah, blame it on being panic.)
No wonder there was a strong burning smell since early evening but we could not track its origin. According to my helper, at around 11 p.m., when the other helper (my brother's who later on ran away) started switching off the lights in the ground floor, the fan suddenly started moving. My helper asked the other helper if she had switched on the ceiling fan, to which she adamantly replied no. And then the ceiling fan started to emit some orangish lights, followed by some crackles, and whoosh - it was on fire!
To be continued
No comments:
Post a Comment