Youngstown home explodes

YOUNGSTOWN -- A repairman working in a vacant house on Roxbury Avenue on the South Side suffered burns to the top half of his body when the house exploded just after 10 a.m. Tuesday.

The explosion left the house a pile of random rubble. A fire that started soon afterward did additional damage.

The explosion blew the worker out of the house just after he flipped on a light switch inside, the worker told people afterward, including a Youngstown police officer who was patrolling nearby when the explosion occurred.

"My whole house shook," said a neighbor living across the street, who was home at the time.

The repairman, whose identity has not been provided by safety forces, was walking around after the explosion and then was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

The explosion left debris strewn across the property, in the 700 block, even in the side yard of a house across the street.

Patrolman Robert Giovanni with the Youngstown Police Department was on patrol nearby. "I was just turning the corner," Giovanni said of the nearby intersection of Roxbury and Gibson Street.

When Giovanni got to the repairman, he had his shirt in his hand -- apparently because the blast blew it off. The man was burned on his face and "whole upper body," Giovanni said.

The patrolman called the burns "extensive."

Giovanni called for an ambulance and the fire department, and put the man in his cruiser to keep him warm.

The man told him he "just turned on the light switch and the house blew up," Giovanni said.

Youngstown Battalion Chief Silverio Caggiano, who was at the scene, said he could not discuss whether natural gas was the cause, saying it is under investigation.

Fire investigator Kurt Wright could be seen looking through the smoldering debris an hour or so after the explosion and fire. Later in the evening, though, he told 21-WFMJ TV that a hot water tank was missing. The gas lines were cut, causing the house to fill up with natural gas.

'VERY LOUD BOOM'

Adriane Turner, who lives across the street, said she heard a "very loud boom" while lying on the couch in her living room.

"I sat up, looked out the window and saw the man actually getting thrown from the house on fire," she said. "He was rolling around on the ground trying to put himself out," Turner said.

"I opened the door and had 911 on the phone and screamed to the man, 'Calm down, sir. I just called 911.'" She said that's when she saw Giovanni's police car pull up.

"He must have been close and he must have heard it," she said. "The next thing you know the house engulfed in flames," she said.

"They must have gotten the man away to a safe distance, and the firefighters came and started attending to the blaze because it was scary."

Firefighters had to move the people from the neighborhood back because they got close, which she thought was foolish, Turner said.

The repairman had been doing repairs at the house on Monday and for several days before the explosion, but she did not know him, Turner said.

The house was still standing for a little while after the explosion, but the fire took it the rest of the way down to the ground.

One of the windows from the exploded house was in Turner's driveway beside her house. All of the glass was gone except jagged little pieces around the edge.

"And there's glass all in the front part of (my) yard," she said.

erunyan@tribtoday.com