Mark McLaughlin
Evening News
May 30, 2008
NEIGHBOURS of a pensioner couple whose home was destroyed in a massive gas blast today told how the elderly woman had been making a cup of tea when the kitchen exploded around her.
Frank Hastie, 87, and his wife Molly, 86, walked away virtually unscathed after being rescued from the rubble of their home in Uphall yesterday morning.
An investigation into the blast is focusing on a gas escape from an appliance that was either faulty or accidentally left on.
Neighbour Tom Perry, 69, a semi-retired janitor, risked his own life to pull the couple from the wreckage of their Loaninghill Park home. He said the explosion emanated from the kitchen.
"It seems Molly had just got up to make a cup of tea," said Mr Perry. "She got out of bed and went to put the kettle on and the kitchen just exploded around her.
"It's mostly older people who live in these houses and they're all single storey, so they're ideal for the more infirm ones.
"Frank is registered blind so the house was great for him, but as it turned out their bedroom shared a wall with the kitchen and the wall just collapsed in on him.I heard the explosion and ran out to help them. When I ran into the garden Molly was still standing there, still in the kitchen.
"She had some burns and she was bleeding from her leg, but otherwise she was okay.
"I had to climb over the kitchen wall to get to Frank, and luckily he was okay as well."
The pair remained in hospital being treated for their injuries as relatives spoke of their incredible escape.
The couple's son Frank Jr, 57, rushed from his home in Newcastle yesterday to be by his parents' side and help pick up the pieces of their decimated home.
The retired oil worker was soon followed by his sisters Angela, 47, and Shirley, who had to cut their holiday in Cyprus short and catch an emergency flight home.
The couple's fourth child, Tommy, was also thought to be coming over from his home in Canada to help comfort his parents. He said: "My mum's had to have dressings put on her burns, but otherwise she's okay.
"The damage to the house was so bad that health and safety officers said it would have to be demolished straight away, so we're going to have to see what we can salvage."
Son-in-law Jim McConnell said the family "could have been attending two funerals" rather than visiting the shaken pensioners in hospital.
The family were only able to retrieve around half a dozen drawers worth of clothes.
Remarkably, much of the internal furniture remained intact after the blast.
It included two vases of flowers, photo frames and a glass sideboard - but the family were prevented from retrieving the items for safety reasons.
A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive said an investigation was under way to establish what caused the explosion, and confirmed the house would now have to be totally demolished.
However, fire crews said they were "almost positive" that a gas escape from inside the property was to blame, and that they were concentrating their investigation on internal appliances.
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