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They’re the modern answer to hot water bottles. But will they burn your house down?
By AMY OLIVER
Last updated at 8:42 AM on 3rd August 2010
For Lynda Townsend, the idea of her elderly mother, Doreen, pouring boiling liquid into a hot-water bottle with her shaky hands had become a worry. What would happen if she burnt herself?
Much better to buy her a ‘wheat bag’, an increasingly popular domestic accessory rather like a mini bean bag, which she could easily heat in the microwave and then use to warm her bed. Or so Mrs Townsend thought.
‘We thought we were doing the right thing buying the wheat bag rather than a hot water bottle,’ she says, her voice starting to break.
‘I do feel guilty about it and still think: “Why wasn’t I there? Why couldn’t I have done anything to help Mum?”‘
Doreen Ghiloni died from smoke inhalation two years ago following a fire caused by the very wheat bag that was supposed to stop her burning herself.
The 82-year-old grandmother from Leeds had heated up the wheat bag in the microwave, as she had done every night, and taken it up to bed with her on a metal tray….Continue Reading
