A DISABLED woman had a lucky escape when she was rescued from a mobility scooter that caught fire in the town centre.

Brenda Nippress, 62, had just been shopping in Tesco when the scooter, which was hired from Shopmobility, stopped in the middle of the ramp outside the store and burst into flames.

She was helped off the scooter by a passer-by before fire crews arrived at about 1pm on Friday.

Brenda, of Stratton, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, said: “My scooter stopped dead on the little slope by Tesco. It went bang and it cut out. I wondered what was going on and then I could smell burning.

“I turned around and there was smoke pouring out the back. There were a few people looking and pointing and saying ‘it’s on fire’, but this young girl was brilliant. She helped me off the scooter and got me to the wall a few steps away for me to lean on.

“This young fellow came and stood by me while they were getting me a chair. The manager of Tesco came out with a chair and a cup of tea while I was waiting for my husband to come and get me, but I couldn’t hold the tea because I was shaking so much.

“I don’t know any of their names but they were brilliant and I just want to thank them. The young man had just come back from Scotland and had been travelling for 15 hours.

“I had just got milk and a paper for my husband. It could have happened in the store. It was literally two minutes from the time I was in there.

“I was just in floods of tears. I didn’t know what to do. The fire was terrible, nobody could believe how fast it went up. There were people everywhere taking pictures on their phones. The whole thing went up in a couple of minutes. There is nothing left of it. The fire brigade was brilliant and put it all out.

“I can’t fault anybody, but it was just so scary.”

Shopmobility, which is based on the ground floor of the Wyvern car park, is run by Swindon Council.

Council spokesman Kevin Burchall said: “We would like to thank the people who helped our customer during the incident.

“We do not know at this stage what caused the fire. All our scooters are serviced regularly and we will be carrying out an investigation to ascertain exactly what happened.”