Hard to explain

I read an article written by Eric Hanson in the Houston Chronicle “Woman's survival of house blast called 'miracle'” (linked via title bar).

“Fire investigators and Quail Valley residents used the words "amazing," "unbelievable" and "miracle" to describe the survival of a 69-year-old woman after an explosion destroyed her brick house early Thursday.”

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“The only thing left standing on the smoldering concrete foundation was the brick fireplace. A dazed Smith stood clad in her pajamas amid the debris and suffered only minor burns.”

While it is believed that the explosion was caused by a gas leak the investigation is on going. Several neighboring homes were damaged; mostly broken windows from the blast.

Reading about the woman standing there in her pajamas, a bit dazed and confused as to what had happened reminded me of a call I ran as a police officer on night shift to investigate an accident where a car had flipped and caught fire. My partner and I arrived and saw the car was upside down with the roof collapsed down so far that it rested on the lower window edges; there was no way anyone inside could have gotten out with the doors wedged shut. We fully expected the worst as we waited for the fire department. A man, presumably a neighbor, was holding a garden hose trying to put out the flames that had engulfed the car to keep the flames from advancing on a huge oak tree in the front yard.

The fire department arrived a few minutes later and extinguished the flames and was about to use the “jaws of life” to make it possible to retrieve who ever might be inside the crushed vehicle. It was then that the fellow holding the garden hose told us that nobody else had been in the car. My partner and I looked at each other and asked him to elaborate; which would be difficult since he was pretty much “spiffed”.

We figured out what had happened, or filled in most of the blanks based on the skid marks and the first impact point which was on the other side of the street corner in a low level drainage ditch. The car left the roadway at a pretty good clip and went head on into the wall of the ditch at which point the driver was ejected from the vehicle through the windshield. The entire windshield broke free and wrapped the driver, sort of like a blanket as he was hurled across the street and landed on the damp lawn and skidded safely to a halt.

The car apparently did an end over end flip and landed on its roof, collapsed the roof and caught fire at the base of the tree which awoke the folks inside the house. They came out and found the wreckage on fire along with some stranger holding their garden hose. My partner and I arrived in short order and since nobody could witness the “alleged“ drunk driving stunt, we had the survivor transported to the hospital in an ambulance to be checked out. Aside from a few minor scratches the driver had escaped certain death; nothing short of a miracle, standing in the middle of a strange yard holding a garden hose and not quite sure how he got there.