A man narrowly escaped injury after his tanning bed caught fire while he was working on his tan at the Millennium Tanning Salon in Regina on Monday.
Jason Viles heard a popping sound and smelled smoke when was inside the tanning bed. As he was locked inside, he escaped by kicking out a stereo unit.
“I couldn’t kick it open. I had to knock the stereo off the wall and crawl out of the back. I didn’t have much room,” Viles told the Vancouver Sun. “There is about less then a foot there maybe, but I squeezed out of it. Anyone bigger wouldn’t have gotten out.”
After escaping, which took about a minute, Viles grabbed his clothes and alerted the staff. Then he and the only other two people using the six-bed salon rushed outside.
“I’ve been going there (Millennium Tanning Salon) for a few months now and 90 per cent (of the time) use that bed,” said Viles. “I’ve never had a problem with it before.”
Viles suffered some minor burns on his stomach. The cause of the fire isn’t yet known, but according to news reports, the same bed had malfunctioned in the past. Firefighters soon had the blaze under control.
