My partner uttered four tragic words before I lost my family, I’m begging you to listen to my warning this Christmas
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WAKING up in a hospital bed, Scott Peden knew how lucky he was to be alive. Heavily bandaged and blackened with burns, he instantly recalled the horrific house fire he had managed to escape. But turning to his mum Glenda, 65, who was sitting beside him, it soon became clear something was very wrong.
![[Scott Peden is warning others this Christmas after he lost his entire family in a house fire]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/337d9c3d-6070-4acc-837d-eaa56a0c5a61.jpg?strip=all&w=573)
She had to break the devastating news that he would never see his wife or their two young children again. Scott was the sole survivor of the blaze which had ripped through the family home while they slept. Scott says: “I still can’t process what’s happened. I lost my entire family, everything, in a matter of minutes.".
![[His partner and two children as well as the family dogs were all killed in the blaze]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/i-kissed-family-good-night-860305234.jpg?strip=all&w=720)
Scott is now warning Christmas shoppers to be wary of buying second hand e batteries after losing both his partner and their children in the fire 18 months ago. Scott Peden bought a second-hand battery after his own was stolen, and he needed his bike to get to work.
![[The house fire was caused by a faulty second-hand battery]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/i-kissed-family-good-night-860305072.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
But two days after purchase, it exploded with such ferocity that it destroyed his home and killed his partner, Gemma Germeney, 31, and their two young children, Lilly, eight and Oliver, four. The family’s two dogs also perished. Scott miraculously pulled through after four weeks in a coma and is now trying to rebuild his life and warn others of the dangers of second-hand lithium batteries.
![[Scott came out of a month long coma and was treated at Broomfield Hospital, a specialist burns unit in Chelmsford]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/i-kissed-family-good-night-860305232.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Scott, 31, from Cambridge, says: “I grieve every day for the family I have lost, but this time of year is especially tough because Gemma and the children had birthdays, and my sister was murdered over New Year. “At Christmas, when people are buying e-bikes as gifts, I am pleading with people not to buy second hand batteries.
![[Scott misses his children Lilly and Oliver every day after their lives were tragically cut short]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/i-kissed-family-good-night-860305076.jpg?strip=all&w=720)
