Hastings Township, MI – A middle-aged man is critically injured and his home is a charred ruin after a pair of 2 a.m. explosions rocked a mobile park in Barry County.
Steve Norman Boomer, 59, was airlifted to Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids with severe burns after his trailer exploded early Sunday morning in the Barry’s Resort & Mobile Home Park off South Charlton Park Road in Hastings.
Neighbors awoken by the 2:19 a.m. blast suspect the explosion was caused by natural gas, which is piped into homes in the trailer park, said Barry’s Resort management.
Hastings Fire Department officials were not immediately available to confirm that hypothesis.
Nonetheless, Darrin Pitts, whose mother, Rita, lives next door to Boomer, wasn’t shy about his distaste for the heating and electric choice.
I don’t have it in my house for that reason, he said. You just don’t know. I use electric. I don’t trust natural gas at all.
But what do you do when that’s all they have? asked Rita Pitts, who was awoken by the explosion, which melted vinyl windows and siding on her home, to the north of Boomer’s.
To the south, the windows and vinyl siding on Ryan Castelein’s home also were damaged. Castelein raced outside and began spraying down Boomer’s trailer with a pair of hoses as the injured man stumbled out of his home.
The flames intensified after a second explosion that shook the trailer shortly after Boomer escaped. He was wrapped in wet blankets by neighbors until emergency responders and Hastings firefighters arrived a while later, Castelein said.
At that point, I just wanted to get my family away, he said.
Pitts said Boomer was disoriented but talking as he leaned on the back of his blue Dodge Ram pickup. He was eventually taken up the road to a landing zone where the helicopter flew him to Grand Rapids. He remained in critical condition as of Sunday afternoon.
Neighbors said Boomer lived alone in the trailer.
The fire department staff returned later Sunday morning to douse the house again. Little remains but charred framing. The home’s contents were reduced to ash.
I live on the corner and when it was completely engulfed, I could feel the heat down at my place, said neighbor Jeff Van Stee.