COLUMBUS – Authorities say a house explosion and fire on the South Side that injured a man and his great-granddaughter Tuesday was likely the result of an accidental gas explosion.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
The little girl was in bed Tuesday morning when her great-grandfather’s South Side house exploded around her, blowing the roof high into the air and the front windows into the street.
In the moments after the blast, but before the rubble erupted in flames, the 3-year-old remained in bed, quiet as could be, witnesses said. She had only some singed hair and minor burns.
“I guess the good Lord above was watching over that baby,” said neighbor Eddie Justice, one of many who rushed over to the home to see if they could help.
Justice assisted the girl’s great-grandfather, Jack Morris, from the wrecked house in the 800 block of Lock Avenue.
Morris, 69, also escaped the blast without life-threatening injuries. He had some serious burns to his left arm, but neighbors found him still standing in an area of the house that hadn’t collapsed entirely, Justice said.
Morris was taken to the burn unit at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. His great-granddaughter, whose name has not been released by fire officials, went to Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Her injuries were largely superficial, Battalion Chief Tracy Smith said.
“The child is fine,” she said.
Fire investigators determined on Tuesday afternoon that the incident was “an accidental gas explosion,” Smith said.
Columbia Gas says in a statement that it believes there was a gas release that was a result of alterations on a customer-owned gas line within the house. The company says those alterations weren’t performed by Columbia Gas and the line is beyond its jurisdiction.