KEY POINTS:
A badly burned GP was today in a stable condition after a Wellington house he was renovating exploded in a huge fireball.
Upper Hutt GP Marko Kljakovic managed to flee the Abel Smith Street property despite having first degree burns to nearly 80 per cent of his body.
He was taken to Wellington Hospital and later transferred to the specialist burns unit at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital.
Forty-nine-year-old Dr Kljaokovic had been visiting the house the house, he co-owned and was in the process of renovating on Sunday night.
Cameron Smither, who had been working on the next door house, said he smelt gas before the explosion happened at about 10pm.
"Then I heard a big bang... flames were shooting out the roof," he told The Dominion Post.
Dr Kljakovic ran out of the house with his clothes on fire, and his 17-year-old son drove him to the hospital before an ambulance arrived.
He was flown to Middlemore hospital where he was in a coma and in critical condition last night.
His condition was described this morning as stable.
Detective senior sergeant Warwick McKee told the newspaper Dr Kljakovic had gone to collect some things from the house, and it was his first visit to the property in a week.
The house didn't have power or gas supplies connected.
Paint and paint thinners were stored inside, and Dr Kljakovic had used a candle to see.
Dr Kljakovic is a GP at Upper Hutt Family Care.
His wife, also a doctor at the same practice, and their three children, are with him in Auckland.
- NZPA
