Alvo, NE – ALVO — If the front door wasn’t lopsided and basement blocks pushed outward, one wouldn’t suspect a house explosion could have killed Jennifer and Neal Wilhelm on Saturday.
“The state fire marshal said the entire house lifted about one foot from the foundation,” said John Leming, who helped his sister move belongings out of the damaged house Tuesday.
Jennifer Wilhelm said her husband went into the basement of their one-story home early that morning to check out a weird smell, then turned on a shop vacuum.
“It was a horrible explosion. Things just flew, and glass broke in the doll cabinets and the refrigerator door blew off. It was bad,” she said.
Then, she said, she heard her husband scream for her to get out of the house.
“I didn’t know Neal was down there. I saw him coming up the stairs and I can see there was nothing left of his hands.”
The Wilhelms got out of the house, and she called 911. Firefighters from Alvo and Eagle found only some scorched insulation in a basement corner.
On Tuesday, Neal Wilhelm, 57, was in fair condition in the burn unit of Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center with burns over about 30 percent of his body.
“He had surgery on Monday,” his wife said. “They grafted skin on both hands. He had burns on his head, face, arms and the back of his legs. The hands got the worst of it.”
Despite the lack of outward signs of damage, the house is a total loss, she said. She and her husband plan to rebuild as soon as the place can be torn down.
Meanwhile, she’s staying at her mother’s house across the street.
Neal Wilhelm, who assembles hydraulic valves for a living, has a long hospital stay ahead of him, followed by physical therapy. He likely won’t be able to work for at least three months, said Jennifer Wilhelm, 60.
“It could have been a lot worse,” she said.
When the house lifted off its foundation, it let some gas and pressure escape.
“He’s fortunate he didn’t get killed,” said Alvo Volunteer Fire Department Chief Rick Koutecky.
The propane leaked from a corroded pipe coming from an outside tank and through a basement wall to the furnace, Jennifer Wilhelm said, adding that the pipe had been rubbing against concrete for years.
The house at 141 Russell St. was built in 1979, and the pipe did not have the protective sleeve required on newer homes, she said.
State Deputy Fire Marshal Ray Nance said the investigator still was compiling a report.