RNZAF Gulf War Veteran in home explosion

[Dave Homewood]

This story is a few weeks old but I just spotted it and I think some here would be interested to read about a former RNZAF Gulf War veteran:

Gulf War veteran calm under fire despite home explosion
CARYN WIGMORE
Last updated 10:17, May 28 2015


Burns victim Paul Robinson recovers from his injuries.

Gulf War veteran Paul Robinson seriously scorched his arms, legs and face when an outdoor scrub fire detonated around him at his Waimauku home in Auckland.

The former Whenuapai-based aircraft engineer drew on military experience to stay calm when his right arm was engulfed in flames, receiving second degree burns.

"As soon as I saw my arm was on fire I hit the deck and rolled straight away," Robinson, 46, says.


Burns victim Paul Robinson recovers from his injuries.
Supplied

"It was a bit of a shock but certainly I'm not the sort of person that panics," the ex serviceman says.

"I've been in stress situations before. You just have to keep your head together."

3-year-old daughter Olive was standing on the side of the paddock and "she saw me catch on fire."

Robinson's wife Justine was inside the house when she heard windows rattle from the blast and came running.

Robinson dashed straight to the shower and stood under running water for 30 minutes while his wife called emergency services.

"Dropping on the ground and standing in the shower for so long did the world of good."

His terrified daughter cried as he stood dousing the burns "but she is fine now," he says.

"It's a good lesson for her to learn not to play with fire."

The Auckland Westpac Rescue helicopter flew Robinson to the Middlemore Hospital burns centre where he had two operations including a skin graft on his right arm.

"They took a slice of skin from my right thigh which was pretty painful in itself."

Robinson is now back home nursing his injuries, grateful to have survived.

"I think it could've been a heck of a lot worse," says.

"I could have fallen into the fire because I was standing right next to it. I was a very lucky boy."

HOW IT HAPPENED

On May 3, Robinson prepared to burn a small pile of pruned palm tree branches about 1pm.

He poured some petrol onto the scrub for an accelerant and tried unsuccessfully to light some scrunched newspaper.

"I went in there with a lighter and it exploded in a big vapour flash.

"The vapour ignited around me so I was engulfed in flames."

"It was just a momentary lapse of concentration for someone who should have known better."

Robinson wants to warn people to be aware of fire risks.

"You get complacent sometimes and I think it's always making sure you're mindful of what dangers are around.

"It doesn't matter how experienced you are or how careful you are- but accidents can happen so easily."

TRAINING PAID OFF

Robinson learned to keep his wits about him when he served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force 40 squadron at Whenuapai airbase.

In 1991 during the first Gulf War he flew troops and munitions to the front to support the coalition after Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait.

In 1990 and 1991 the RNZAF deployed two Hercules and personnel to the Gulf War where they operated as part of a composite RAF Hercules squadron.

Robinson with fellow Royal New Zealand Airforce crew members flew different sorties on Hercules aircraft from their base at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia .

They dodged relentless scud missile fire above the airport.

Patriot missiles were set up around the airport perimeter and being inaccurate, would fire in any direction, he says.

"Pretty much every night something would get fired but we didn't know which night it would be in our direction.

"We'd get in our Nuclear Biological Chemical suits and hunker down in the basement."

An NBC suit is military personal equipment designed to protect against direct contact with contamination by radioactive, biological or chemical substances.

Robinson escaped injury during the perilous four months he dropped supplies to forward airbases and serviced aircraft.

"I waited until I came back home to do something silly."

- Stuff.co.nz

www.stuff.co.nz/national/68843167/gulf-war-veteran-calm-under-fire-despite-home-explosion

[baronbeeza]

prepared to burn a small pile of pruned palm tree branches about 1pm.

He poured some petrol onto the scrub for an accelerant and tried unsuccessfully to light some scrunched newspaper.

"I went in there with a lighter and it exploded in a big vapour flash.

The first Gulf War was almost 25 years ago.

Wouldn't this story be about trying to use a lighter with petrol and the possible dangers associated with that, the kind of stuff that RNZAF training and experience may have been useful for.

I would be keeping quiet about my engineering background myself. Anyway the reporter managed to milk a story out of an "explosion' somehow.

A guy burnt his arm attempting to light petrol soaked leaves with a cigarette lighter.
Kids don't try this at home..

[jonesy]

Plenty of videos on You Tube showing this....its the explosive vapour of petrol is the problem and many people get caught out by it.



I often show these to guys I'm training, not to show the potential for injury whilst carrying out such burns, but because theyre hilariously funny. (Its obviously not funny to see people getting burned, far from it, but seeking jackasses in action does have some humour value)

PS...For best results use diesel with a little bit of petrol mixed in, and some Jet A-1 to give it some meat once its going.

[komata]

Sadly all too common. There is another aspect of this which is seldom mentioned : 'Literacy'. Let me explain (and yes, this is a true story BTW):

Many years ago a neighbour decided to get a poorly-burning backyard rubbish fire going by adding some petrol to the mix. She carried a small amount of petrol in a well-labelled petrol tin down the path with her, poured some of the contents over the fire, and walked back down the path. She was about 20 feet back down the path when the fire 'caught'. The flames raced back up the fume trail, and into the tin, which, unsurprisingly exploded. She was quite badly burnt as a result. We asked her later why she had used PETROL of all things to ignite the fire. The answer: 'The notice on the petrol tin said 'INflammable and I didn't think it would catch fire'!! ('IN' being interpreted as 'NON', as in IN soluble; cannot dissolve' etc.).

Although the lady now knows differently (and still has the scars to remind her) , I have been surprised over the years how many people still make the same mistake, sometimes with consequences similar to those I have related.

As I said, 'Literacy'.

[baronbeeza]

www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=307936&nseq=14


Aircraft engineers can get caught out also. The RNZAF was well onto the hazards associated with de-fuelling and refuelling.

I am not sure of the background to the pic above, the detail that is.
We all knew it had happened and were shockened and saddened naturally.

Now another airfield and about 4 years later.....

I was staggered to see an aircraft being de-fuelled in a hangar in ChCh without any form of bonding etc. Even the containers of drained fuel were still in the vicinity. The novices (pilots and owners) were completely oblivious to the dangers and were not even aware of this earlier incident.
If they had been unaware of the dangers involved they may have gained an appreciation after the broadside I delivered.

I have seen Jet A1 and diesel being used but was surprised to see that petrol vapour going the way it did in the video clip.
Does anyone know how the modern autofuel compares with Avgas in that regard ?

[davidd]

Re Komata's story of the woman and the backyard rubbish fire, if the woman's fondest desire was to improve her fire, why would she use a liquid which she was convinced would NOT burn! Sounds as though she had multiple problems of English comprehension and literacy generally, or just plain lack of logic.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

I vaguely recall a lady in our street was killed by an explosion when I was young, looking into the mower petrol tin with a lighter to check how much was there. That's what I recall being told by my Nana who was warning me to never do it. I seem to recall she was a school teacher but I don't think we knew her, she lived a few blocks down the street I think.

[komata]

davidd: Point made, although if she did it wasn't evident in her 'normal' life. Curiously. I have at variosu times met others who have interpretted 'INflammable as being 'not so'. I believe the relevant NZ Government Haz' Chem regs. now differentiate between 'Flammmable' and NON-flammable for exactly that reason; 'IN" being too open to misinterpretation.

Apropos 'fumes and fire etc. In respect of petrol, it's apparently the 'fumes' which are the problem; a point well-made to me and others by a Staff Instructor many years ago who put a puddle of petrol in a saucer under an extractor fan in the middle of a room. He turned the extractor fan on then proceeded to stub his lit cigarette out in the puddle!!! Look ma, no SI? No, nothing happened - the fumes had been removed and the petrol was 'inert'. We had all scattered of course, and came back very, very warily 'just in case'. (as one does).

As if that wasn't enough, the area where we lived in the 1970's was the target of a serial arsonist. A neighbour, hearing a noise one evening , walked out onto his front porch to discover a fully loaded (right to the top - no 'air space between the liquid and the underside of the top) petrol tin in residence; the petrol in the tin was very definitely on fire and the tin was glowing red hot, the petrol apparently bubbling.  There was also a 15-20 kt wind blowing (which was apparently very important - as will become evident)  After the fire brigade had 'solved the problem' the neighbour asked why the tin had not exploded and was told that it was because of two reasons: (1) there was no 'fume space' above the liquid inside the interior of the tin for air, flame and fumes to mix and ignite and (2) because the fumes were being blown away by the wind and as a result hadn't been able to mix with oxygen, and so cause an explosion .

As I was not directly involved I can only repeat what I was told, but have no reason to doubt it.

(The Police subsequently caught the arsonist, but that is another story all together).

And then, of course, there's Propane (luverly stuff - not).  For shear energy-release it leaves petrol far, far behind...

[kiwithrottlejockey]

On two separate occasions during the same weekend in 1975, I was at Bridge Pa aerodrome when an aeroplane got “bent” and Temple Martin came out with his aircraft recovery trailer towed by his trusty Land Rover. In each case he had the always-present roll-your-own cigarette in his mouth and proceeded to light it several times when it had gone out. The first occasion it was a PA-28-140 which got bent when it took off with the carb-heat on while doing touch-and-go circuits and ended up in the paddock over the road; the second time was John Plank's Cessna 185 ZK-CGH which was groundlooped while being used as a jumpship and had one wing damaged. In both cases there was a strong smell of avgas, but that didn't worry Temple Martin who kept puffing away on his fag, although everybody else in the vicinity made themselves scarce very quickly the first time he re-lit his fag. There was no fire or explosion....I guess somebody up there was looking after the old codger who always seemed to have a bulletproof demeanour and always had that fag in his mouth. I seem to recall that Temple was known as Mr Moth back then, due to the numerous Tiger Moth restorations he carried out in his workshop at Bridge Pa.

[Dave Homewood]

It just shows how some people have no safety sense.

[isc]

I hear tell that in the days of the Tigermoth, the idea was that after you started it up in the morning, you had a fag(cigarete to non Kiwis), that was about the right time to get the temperature up, and ready to go