CHEF Sebastian Snow has revealed that he’s “lucky to be alive” after a massive explosion in his pub kitchen left him badly burned.

A fireball enveloped Mr Snow’s head in the incident, believed to have been caused when a blowtorch blew up in his face while he worked in the kitchen of his pub, The Lamb at Crawley, near Witney, on July 17.

Mr Snow, 57, who runs The Lamb with his wife, Lana, 51, has made an amazing recovery from his injuries and a few small scars on his hands are the only visible reminders of the dramatic blast.

“The blowtorch had been left unnoticed on an unlit stove, next to a lit stove, for about an hour,” Mr Snow explained.

“I was leaning over the stove filling a fat fryer with oil when ‘boom!’ I was hit by a fireball.

“The fat fryer wasn’t on, otherwise I don’t think I would be here – that saved my life.”

With his head on fire, Mr Snow ran screaming into the bar where quick-thinking general manager, Paul Piper, 30, quickly doused him in water while Mrs Snow turned the foam fire extinguisher on him to smother the flames.

No customers were in the pub at the time.

Mr Snow suffered second-degree flash burns and was put into intensive care at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.

“The main worry was that my airway could swell and block,” he revealed.

“The hospital staff were brilliant – the doctors advised me my head would swell up to twice the size, and not to look in the mirror.

“Lana has shocking photos of how I looked.

“When I came home the burned skin on my face literally fell off, but the new skin underneath is fantastic – they say I look 10 years younger!”

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Mrs Snow was working at a table in the bar when the explosion occurred.

“There was a massive bang and I saw the kitchen door fly across the bar,” she explained.

“I screamed for Sebastian, I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead – there was debris everywhere.”

Mr Snow’s sous chef and kitchen porter fortunately escaped uninjured from the kitchen blast.

The pub kitchen was wrecked, bringing the ceiling down and badly damaging Mr and Mrs Snow’s flat above it, which they had only moved into the week before.

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“The impact shot my new fridge-freezer through the ceiling into the attic,” Mrs Snow revealed.

“We had rented out our house in Lechlade literally the week before, so we spent the next 12 weeks while the pub was being repaired living with kind friends at six different houses.”

The couple, who formerly ran The Five Alls at Filkins and have three children – Genc, 28, Nora, 24, and 12-year-old Isabella – had taken over The Lamb just three months before the accident and are currently in the process of buying it from Brakspear brewery.

The pub reopened on October 18. In the interim, throughout the summer, the Snows served an amended menu from a mobile catering van and a wood-fired pizza oven in the garden.

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“We are now back to full power,” said Mr Snow.

“We have amazing supportive customers, and within a week we were back to where we were before the accident.

“We feel very lucky and are now looking forward to a great Christmas at The Lamb.”

Pub general manager Mr Piper, who has worked with the Snows for five years, commented: “It’s been a really hard time but we have the greatest respect for Sebastian and Lana who pushed to get the pub reopened quickly. “They kept all the staff on and paid us throughout.”

Firefighters were called to The Lamb Inn at around 11.30am on the day of the explosion.