Ex-Wife Comes To Ex-Husband's Side After Home Explosion

Ex-Wife Comes To Ex-Husband's Side After Home Explosion

Story Published: Oct 5, 2007 at 9:56 PM PST

By Aaron Kellogg

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WEST VALLEY -- Firefighters now think a 200-gallon propane tank caused the explosion at a home off Tieton Drive Thursday night. The only person in the home at the time of the explosion got badly burned and the woman who got called to work to help him survive is the woman he once married.

Kim A got a call from Memorial hospital minutes after the home exploded around 7:30 in the evening.

"They told me on the phone," she said, of her ex-husbands injuries. Authorities aren't releasing his name until his mother is notified of her son's second and third degree burns that cover about 40 percent of his body.

"I had a horrible feeling. A very horrible feeling they don't give much information over the phone. They don't give much information over the phone," A said.

Investigators say her ex-husband alone at home working on the heating system when the blast ripped through the cinder-block building, blowing out the windows and tearing through the roof. Neighbors say it sounded like a bomb went off. Some felt the blast inside their homes.

"I was just getting ready to unlock my jeep and then I heard this great, big blast and it blew me up against the door," Gary Yager, who lives nearby, said.

On Friday a local propane company came to survey the damage. Meanwhile Kim spent Friday hoping to find her dog Max. Initial reports suggested he died in the wreckage, but neighbors spotted the dog sprinting away from the home. He turned up about a half-mile from the blast site at a neighbor's house. They say the lab-mix ran through an orchard and smelled of the explosion.

Max is badly burned, but to A's relief, is alive. Meanwhile, A's ex husband is recovering at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Family members say he's in critical condition.

Firefighters say there's no reason believe the blast and fire are intentional.

He's being treated at the vet.

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