Cornwall woman stuck in medical chair for seven hours after storm triggered power cut
The battery failed when Storm Eunice made the power go out
A woman from Cornwall has told us how her mum was stuck in her electrical medical chair for seven hours when Storm Eunice triggered a power cut.
The emergency battery failed when the power went out and Jo Shreeve's mum was stuck in the lying down position until someone could come out to help.
Western Power came out with a generator so that the chair could move again.
Jo, from Stithians, has a six-year-old daughter called Esme and they were without electricity for three days following the severe gales.
They had no heating on Friday or Saturday night and have only just got their internet back.
She said: "My mum's in an electric medical chair and the battery failed on the chair so she was stuck in the lying down position for seven hours until we could get someone out to get her chair moved. Thank god there wasn't a fire or something, as it could have been really dangerous.
"My friend was in the campervan boiling hot water and I was taking the flasks up to the old people on the estate, everyone was just chipping in and looking after each other.
"I've been pulling my hair out, no Wi-Fi in half term has to be the worst time for it to happen. We have power cuts out here quite often but only for a few hours, never anything on this scale."
Jo also lost her fence in the strong winds and all the food in her fridge and freezer during the power cut.
As of Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of homes across Cornwall are still without power.
Western Power Distribution says they are determined that the final few hundred customers whose supplies were lost during Storm Eunice will be restored today. Even more teams from the East and West Midlands and South Wales have joined colleagues in the South West to make this happen.
They also have customers who were affected by Storm Franklin and the calmer weather means they are now confident that they too will have supplies restored by the end of the day. In total there are currently have 168 faults from the two storms on the network, impacting 3,423 customers overall.
Operations Director Graham Halladay said: “The weather is finally being kind to us, which is speeding up our progress. I would like to thank customers for their resilience and patience during what has been the worst period of sustained bad weather any of us can remember.
“It has been very humbling to receive the thank you cards customers have been sending us. Most of our staff and their families live in the communities we serve so getting the lights back on isn’t just a matter of pride – it’s personal.
“I would like to echo customers in paying tribute to our staff who have been working long hours, often in terrible conditions. We are sorry that restoring supplies has taken longer than we would like but please be assured we haven’t forgotten anyone. Quite simply, we wouldn’t.”
On Saturday Western Power's helicopters flew 330km of network, inspecting more than 3,200 pylons and poles. Conditions were too bad for the helicopters to fly on Sunday but they were able to get airborne on Monday, although crew reported ‘it was like working in a washing machine for the day’.
The advantage of the helicopters is that they can inspect remote areas. There have been incidents where more than one tree has fallen on overhead lines. The trees have to be cleared before teams can even begin to assess what repair is needed, which all takes time.
Western Power says its helicopters are continuing to patrol the network. They are now looking for storm damage that hasn’t affected supplies but will need repairs in the future.