WATCH: Fire engine a backdrop for dramatic marriage proposal

A PORT Elizabeth man set his girlfriends’s heart on fire yesterday when he arrived at her Cape Road workplace in a fire engine with flashing lights and proposed to her.

But Noel Long, 39, an accountant at HH Accounting in Newton Park, did not stop there – in full fireman dress, he went down on one knee to ask Leigh Bubb, 33, his girlfriend of two years, to marry him.

The unique proposal took place outside Bubb’s workplace, the Eye and Laser Institute. She and colleagues were standing outside as Long had conveniently arranged for a fire drill to be held there at about 10am.

Bubb was shocked to see Long emerge from the fire engine, and agreed immediately when he asked her to spend the rest of her life with him. She, and many of her colleagues, shed tears when Long slipped an engagement ring on her finger.

“I was not expecting this at all. My boss simply said there was a fire drill and that we all had to go outside. I was confused, but went outside. I was wondering, ‘Why are people taking photos if there is a fire drill?’,” she said.

Bubb was still overwhelmed while talking to Weekend Post following the event, stammering and even forgetting her own age. “I loved it. It was great,” she said of Long’s dramatic overture.

“He also went down on one knee, which was nice and old-fashioned. The ladies here shed some tears.” -Lee-Anne Butler