By Brandon Formby
The Dallas Morning News
HUNT COUNTY, Texas — Hannah Clack, 18, and her 20-year-old boyfriend, Alex Addy, slept in a front bedroom of a single-story, white-brick house Friday night as five friends mingled in the living room.
About 1:55 a.m. Saturday, a scream that propane gas was leaking near a bathroom woke them.
“They figured it out too late,” Ms. Clack said. “Two seconds later, the house blew up.”
Five of the couple’s friends — including four teenagers — were injured in the blast and taken to Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville. From there, they were flown by medical helicopter to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
The names of the injured — a 16-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy and men ages 18, 19 and 20 — were not released Saturday.
A hospital spokeswoman said two were listed in serious condition and another in fair condition Saturday afternoon. She said she couldn’t comment on the conditions of the other two because they were juveniles.
Hunt County officials said two of the injured were in intensive care with burns on 60 percent to 70 percent of their bodies.
Hunt County Fire Marshal Richard Hill said a preliminary investigation showed that the blast in the 6100 block of South FM1565 probably was caused by a propane leak in a hallway adjacent to a bathroom near the center of the house. The home sits on a rural road south of Interstate 30 and east of Royse City.
Mr. Hill said the blast caused “total devastation of the house.”
“The bricks were literally blown off the walls,” he said.
As Mr. Addy picked up debris strewn several yards into the lawn Saturday afternoon, Ms. Clack talked about the incident, which she described as surreal.
She said the blast blew out the window of the bedroom she and Mr. Addy were in. She said they immediately climbed out the window and into the front yard, where their friends also gathered.
Another friend, who had been in the front yard at the time of the blast, drove three of the injured to the Greenville hospital. Ambulances took the other two injured people there before all five were transferred to Parkland. A friend treated cuts on Mr. Addy’s hands.
Ms. Clack said she couldn’t believe she had been able to walk away unscathed.
“Having seen the sunrise this morning was the greatest thing ever,” she said.
Bricks from all four exterior walls lay in piles near the house Saturday afternoon. Two exterior walls had holes blown through them. Every window in the house was blown out.
Mr. Hill said the explosion damaged some ceilings and shifted ceiling joints. But in the kitchen, bottles on top of a refrigerator appeared unmoved.
“We believe the blast actually self-extinguished the fire,” he said.
Mr. Hill said even the injured should consider themselves lucky.
“The horrific destruction of that house — you wonder why there weren’t some people killed,” he said.
But Chuck Ballard of Poetry said Saturday that his thoughts centered on the road ahead for the injured. Before Mr. Addy and his friends began renting the single-story house, Mr. Ballard’s grandparents lived there for decades. Mr. Ballard spent holidays there and stayed there during hunting trips. On Saturday, he stopped by to survey the destruction after hearing about it on the news.
“It’s incredible, the amount of damage,” he said.
Mr. Ballard said he knows firsthand what it will take for those in the hospital to recover. In 1994, a paint fume explosion burned him over 80 percent of his body.
He said his initial surgeries and skin grafts were a blur. The mental anguish has ebbed with time, but the physical scars remain. Mr. Ballard said the years of physical rehabilitation still stick with him.
“It won’t stop in the hospital,” he said. “It keeps going not just mentally but physically. The mental part, hopefully, they’ll get over in the first few years.”
Copyright 2007 The Dallas Morning News
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News