The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

TWO men and a woman were rushed to hospital Friday morning after suffering injuries from an explosion at their apartment complex on Third Street, The Grove.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Audley Peters told reporters on the scene that officers from the police fire department were alerted to the incident sometime around 9.30 am Friday.

He said when officers arrived at the scene, they found a two-storey building with extensive damage.

“Further investigations revealed that three individuals as a result of an explosion were ejected from the building on the southern side onto the adjacent property,” ASP Peters said. “Emergency Medical Services were summoned and those three persons, which includes two males and a female, were transported to the hospital where their conditions are not known at this time.”

When asked what led to the explosion, the police press liaison officer was unable to say.

“We are not able to say what caused the explosion at the moment, that's why the investigators are conducting their investigations,” he said.

Area residents were also unsure what caused the incident when speaking to reporters at the scene Friday.

One tenant, who rents a downstairs apartment in the two-storey building, called the situation perplexing after claiming not to have heard any sound of an explosion at the time of the incident.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she had just got off work moments before the explosion occurred.

She said she was lying down when the roof suddenly collapsed, trapping her inside the apartment.

“I didn’t really hear an explosion,” the woman told reporters Friday. “The roof just collapsed on me. Like I was laying down because I just got off and I heard they said some gentleman got blown over the roof next door, but I was trying to figure out how because I didn’t hear anything and then they said the lady who got (hurt) she heard some hissing sound or something like that so I don’t know, but I didn’t hear like no explosion or anything like that.”

Describing her reaction to the incident, she said: “I didn’t know how to feel. I was so shocked. It fell on my head and my side so the sheet rock was blocking me from coming out the bed and I couldn’t even get up because the people had to come and help me get down, but I was too shaken up to move because I felt like everything would’ve collapsed and I would’ve lost my life.”

The resident said she had only been renting there for about a week.

Another area resident, who also asked for her name not to be used, gave her account of what happened in the neighbourhood.

She said: “It sounded like when a dump truck lay down a big garbage tin and someone told me the place on the side of me where I lived just exploded and when I came there were two gentlemen in the yard, one was bleeding from the mouth and they had burns about the body and I tried to get them outside to get the ambulance and someone called the ambulance and then the ambulance came and that’s all I know.”

Frank Stuart, the complex’s owner, told reporters the building consisted of ten apartment units, six of which he believed may have been destroyed as a result of the explosion.

Despite the damage, Mr Stuart said he was grateful that no lives were lost.

“I feel good because no one died and so it’s a good day and no one died so that’s a good thing so I’m not even worrying about the building,” he said.

Police said investigations into this incident are continuing.