Huntsville, AL- A woman injured in a dramatic natural gas explosion at Huntsville’s Lincoln Park public housing development has been upgraded from critical to serious condition at UAB Burn Center.
Fire officials said Cheri Kent, 26, and her children – ages 5 and 7 – were sleeping when leaking natural gas ignited inside their apartment around 10 p.m. Tuesday.
Tramaine Snodgrass, an investigator with the city fire marshal’s office, said the pilot light on the apartment’s furnace or hot water heater appears to be the source of the ignition. The blast occurred in the attic, said Snodgrass, and sparked a fire that damaged two other apartments in the same building.
“I’d say it was a medium to major explosion,” Snodgrass said Wednesday. “There was a significant amount of debris.”
He said a man from a nearby apartment who saw the explosion helped get Kent and her children out of the burning building. Kent was initially taken to Huntsville Hospital before being transferred to UAB Burn Center in Birmingham.
Don Webster, chief operating officer of the HEMSI ambulance service, said Kent sustained severe burns to more than 50 percent of her body. The children, whose names have not been released, were taken to Children’s Hospital Burn Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
Everyone in the adjoining apartments got out safely.
Huntsville Utilities turned off natural gas service to all 193 units at Lincoln Park for several hours Wednesday while authorities tried to determine the cause of the leak. Lincoln Park is located about a mile north of downtown on Washington Street.