Oklahoma City, OK- A woman was pulled from her home by an Oklahoma Natural Gas worker after a gas explosion Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
The woman identified only as in her 60s was making cookies about 5 p.m. when the explosion rocked the southwest Oklahoma City home, 9208 S Villa Ave., fire Deputy Chief Marc Woodard said.
An ONG employee investigating the smell of gas in the area ran into the back door of the flaming home and brought her to safety, he said.
The woman was treated at the scene, but refused to be taken to the hospital, Woodard said.
This one employee for Oklahoma Natural Gas literally jumped the fence of the house next door, ran behind the house, went in the back door because there was fire in the front and got her out. She was inside the kitchen baking cookies and (he) rescued her, so very heroic on his part, he said.
She is the only person with injuries.No fatalities. It’s a miracle that there wasn’t. Usually when you have something like this, you have several fatalities due to the amount of pressure in the explosion that you have, Woodard said.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation.
Walter Mitchell lives three doors west of the house that exploded.
I was sitting there watching TV, and all of a sudden the house shook like crazy, a concussion-type thing, he said.
I went outside to see what was going on. I saw some debris up in the air. I looked down at the east side of the block. I could see that a house was demolished. The roof had apparently blown up in the air and came back down upside down, Mitchell said.
People were being curious and coming outdoors to see what happened because it was really quite a concussion. I have a friend who lives about half a mile away and they said it shook the north end of their house also, he said.
The house was destroyed by the blast, Woodard said, and the surrounding houses also suffered significant damage. A total of seven homes were evacuated.
The blast punched a hole in the wall of the house just north, and windows were shattered in the house across the street, but Mitchell said the only damage to his home were blades of a ceiling fan which fell off during the blast.
A damage estimate was not available Thursday night.