A woman was injured when a warm-air boiler in her home exploded in her face, the Circuit Civil Court heard yesterday.
Ms Nuala Corvin (60), of Lakelands Close, Kilmacud, Co Dublin, settled her £30,000 damages claim against Mulvey Heating, Upper Dominick Street, Dublin, who had serviced the boiler 10 weeks before the accident.
Ms Corvin, a part-time hairdresser, told her counsel, Mr Michael Byrne, that her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes had been badly singed and her face had been blackened with soot debris.
While her face had not been badly burned, Ms Corvin suffered severe post-traumatic stress. "It would have been better for me if I had broken an arm or a leg," she told Mr Conor Halpin, counsel for the heating company.
She told the Circuit Court President, Mr Justice Esmond Smyth, that the explosion occurred in November 1999 while she was attempting to light the boiler. It had been serviced 10 weeks previously by Mulvey Heating. She said that the system, which sent warm air through the house, was installed 30 years ago when the house was built.
Cross-examined by Mr Halpin, Ms Corvin denied that Mulveys had ever advised her that the system was obsolete. She claimed that on the day after the explosion she broke down, when discussing the incident with a technician, as a result of her post-traumatic stress.
After the lunch break, Mr Byrne told Mr Justice Smyth that the action had been settled for an undisclosed amount.