By Mark McLaughlin

A DUNDEE mother with a serious heart condition risked her own life to alert neighbours of a fire raging in their city tenement close.

Karen Andrews (43) spotted thick black smoke pouring from the tenement in Balunie Place, adjacent to her own property.

She ran out of her house, fighting through black smoke to warn friend Kim Smith and her three-year-old son Kaiden to get out of their flat.

Karen and Kim then shouted up to the other properties to evacuate the building, while Karen’s daughter Gemma called the fire service.

The blaze had taken hold in a communal cellar-room right outside Kim’s door and her flat.

Fire crews received the call at 12.24pm on Saturday and arrived to find the tenement’s occupants assembled outside, many still in their nightclothes after been jolted out of their homes while enjoying a lazy afternoon.

Karen is on medication for a leaky heart-valve and firefighters immediately called for a paramedic to ensure that she had not endangered her own life.

She was treated for smoke inhalation and paramedics said the choking black smoke, coupled with Karen’s raised adrenaline and heart- rate, could have had fatal consequences.

Still visibly shaken from the ordeal, Karen told The Courier that she had paid no heed to her own personal safety and thought only of her friends and neighbours in the burning building.

She said, “I think anyone would do the same and if it happened again I would have no hesitation in doing it a second time.

“I just thought of Kim and her son, and all of the other children and families in the building, and ran over to help them.”

Tayside Fire and Rescue watch manager Andy Doig, of Kingsway fire station, cautiously praised the Dundee mother.

He said, “Karen inhaled a lot of smoke and I wouldn’t advise anyone with that kind of heart condition to run towards a smoking building, but it was a good thing she that she managed to warn the neighbours.

“This could have been much more serious as the cellar is right next to the main point of entry and exit to the tenement.

“The smoke was pouring into the main stairwell and could potentially have trapped people in their homes.”

Mr Doig said the incident highlighted the importance of keeping communal cellars locked to prevent such fires taking hold.

The Balunie Place cellar door was left open and was packed with wooden furniture, plastics and other flammable items.

There was no internal ignition source in the cellar-room, indicating that a lit object must have been thrown in from the outside to start the fire.

However, following inquiries Tayside Police officers said they were not treating the fire as suspicious, and the most likely cause of ignition was the careless disposal of a cigarette or other flammable item.