Spurminator
07-11-2007, 09:36 AM
Cleburne man told to stop lighting cigarettes before house explosion
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4958730.html
Associated Press
TOOLS
Email Get section feed
Print Subscribe NOW
Comments
CLEBURNE — A man whose wife died after their home exploded had been told not to light any more cigarettes nearly an hour before the blast, according to a city fire marshal's report.
After calling the Cleburne Fire Department's nonemergency number on May 29, David Pawlick told the fire inspector that "every time my wife lights a cigarette, a blue flame shoots up to the ceiling." Fire inspector Scott Oesch said he would check the problem and told Pawlick not to light any more matches, according to a memo written by Oesch two days later.
Oesch did not tell the family to leave the home — where authorities later discovered natural gas had seeped in but gone undetected.
Before the inspector arrived, Pawlick's wife, Hazel, said she wanted to smoke. So Pawlick lit a match for his wife's cigarette, but it went out after a blue flash. He lit another match, sparking an explosion of blue flames in the house, Fire Marshal Bill Wright reported.
Seconds later, flames went through the ceiling into the attic. Another more violent explosion then ripped a hole in the home's roof.
Five of the family members were injured. Hazel Pawlick, 64, died days later from her injuries.
Hazel Sanderson, the Pawlick's daughter, and her daughter, Stephanie Sanderson, remain in critical condition at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, said the family's attorney.
Pawlick is suing Atmos Energy and seeking unspecified damages. Family attorney Dean Jackson declined to comment on the inspector's claim about Pawlick being told not to light any more cigarettes.
"We are not going to know the sequence of events until we put people under oath and take depositions," Jackson said.
Atmos Energy spokesman Rand LaVonn said he could not comment on the report because of pending litigation.
The Pawlicks house did not use natural gas. But fire investigators say natural gas leaked from nearby and traveled into a sewer line leading into the house.
A condensation line from an air conditioning unit dropped into the sewer pipe. The result was an air conditioning unit that worked as a pump, sucking the natural gas from the sewer line and distributing it through the air conditioning ducts, Wright wrote.
No odor was detected from the gas because "after traveling that far through soil and water the mercaptan ... could be washed or scrubbed out by the filtering action of the soil," according to the report.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4958730.html
Associated Press
TOOLS
Email Get section feed
Print Subscribe NOW
Comments
CLEBURNE — A man whose wife died after their home exploded had been told not to light any more cigarettes nearly an hour before the blast, according to a city fire marshal's report.
After calling the Cleburne Fire Department's nonemergency number on May 29, David Pawlick told the fire inspector that "every time my wife lights a cigarette, a blue flame shoots up to the ceiling." Fire inspector Scott Oesch said he would check the problem and told Pawlick not to light any more matches, according to a memo written by Oesch two days later.
Oesch did not tell the family to leave the home — where authorities later discovered natural gas had seeped in but gone undetected.
Before the inspector arrived, Pawlick's wife, Hazel, said she wanted to smoke. So Pawlick lit a match for his wife's cigarette, but it went out after a blue flash. He lit another match, sparking an explosion of blue flames in the house, Fire Marshal Bill Wright reported.
Seconds later, flames went through the ceiling into the attic. Another more violent explosion then ripped a hole in the home's roof.
Five of the family members were injured. Hazel Pawlick, 64, died days later from her injuries.
Hazel Sanderson, the Pawlick's daughter, and her daughter, Stephanie Sanderson, remain in critical condition at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, said the family's attorney.
Pawlick is suing Atmos Energy and seeking unspecified damages. Family attorney Dean Jackson declined to comment on the inspector's claim about Pawlick being told not to light any more cigarettes.
"We are not going to know the sequence of events until we put people under oath and take depositions," Jackson said.
Atmos Energy spokesman Rand LaVonn said he could not comment on the report because of pending litigation.
The Pawlicks house did not use natural gas. But fire investigators say natural gas leaked from nearby and traveled into a sewer line leading into the house.
A condensation line from an air conditioning unit dropped into the sewer pipe. The result was an air conditioning unit that worked as a pump, sucking the natural gas from the sewer line and distributing it through the air conditioning ducts, Wright wrote.
No odor was detected from the gas because "after traveling that far through soil and water the mercaptan ... could be washed or scrubbed out by the filtering action of the soil," according to the report.