An elderly man has been badly burned after his shirt caught fire as he used a grinder in Central Hawke's Bay.
Waipukurau deputy chief fire officer Owen Spotswood said the incident happened at the 84-year-old man's residence on Freyberg Tce, Waipukurau. Mr Spotswood presumed the man had been using an angle-grinder when the accident happened.
"He set fire to his shirt, took the shirt off and put another one on, and then his family were going to drive him to Hastings [hospital]," Mr Spotswood said.
The man's family made it as far as the service station on the Herbert and Russell St in Waipukurau township, where they called an ambulance, perhaps because of the amount of pain the man was in, Mr Spotswood said.
The man was taken by St John Ambulance to the Waipukurau Aerodrome where he was flown by the Lowe Corporation Rescue Helicopter to Hawke's Bay Hospital for further treatment.