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Explosion destroys College Ward home; two seriously injured

October 22nd, 2009 Posted in Opinion

By Megan Wiseman

CACHE COUNTY–A house in College Ward exploded this morning, injuring a brother, sister, and an off-duty sheriff’s deputy. The explosion happened around 10:30 a.m.

house-explosion

Tony Sorensen, 27, and Mary Sorensen, 23, were injured when their parent’s house exploded. Tony was taken by helicopter to a Salt Lake City hospital burn unit with 65 percent of his body covered in burns, said Chief Deputy David Bennett of the Cache County Sheriff’s Office. Mary was taken to Logan Regional Hospital with burns and cuts. An off-duty sheriff’s deputy who lives near the Sorensen’s was treated on the scene for nail puncture wounds in his feet from going into the house.

Neighbor Beverly Christensen said Dennis and Leona Sorensen, parents of the the victims, are currently serving an LDS mission in Scotland and the two adult children were house-sitting while the parents were gone. Bennett said the parents had been notified. Tony and Mary are the two youngest of nine children.

Christensen said she felt the explosion and ran outside thinking “a plane had hit my house.” Outside she saw neighbors Jill and Brandon Anderson. Brandon jumped into another neighbor’s truck and went down to the house where he was one of the first on the scene and dug Tony out from under the rubble, said Christensen. Tony had severe burns and an almost severed leg, and Mary was found walking around the property with less severe injuries, said Jill.

Fire departments from Logan, Millville, Hyrum, Wellsville, Cache County, North Logan, and Smithfield responded to the scene. They had to bring in tanker trucks full of water because there are no hydrants on the road. The house was still being sprayed down at 1:30 as a precaution. Debris from the house flew more than 100 feet into a nearby field, damaging the garage of the house directly south of the Sorensen home, said Deputy Bennett.

Bennett said the house is a complete loss and it was lucky it happened in a rural area where there weren’t many other homes nearby.

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  1. One Response to “Explosion destroys College Ward home; two seriously injured”

  2. By Ted Pease on Oct 23, 2009

    Way to hustle, Megan! Nice job.
    TP

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