Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 11, 1994 TAG: 9410110128
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MONETA LENGTH: Medium
In the background, friends and family sifted through a thick blanket of black and gray ashes, pulling out bits of clothing, records that had warped and a set of black melted golf clubs in a burnt bag.
Then the De Sarts' oldest son, Gary, who had come from Northern Virginia to help, ran up to his mother, clutching a blackened bundle of rags.
"My purse! You found my purse!" she cried. As they peeled apart the disintegrating layers of singed cloth and melted leather, her red billfold was revealed, almost untouched, like a perfect seed in a rotten apple.
"It's still warm," they observed as she gingerly tried to pry the billfold open with her burned, bandaged fingers. Inside, about $25 in cash and most of her credit cards were OK.
But more important to Phyllis De Sart and her husband Dean are the photos - especially one of their middle son, who died two years ago.
The survival of the billfold was only a small miracle compared with the Bedford County couple's escape from their home early Sunday after a mysterious explosion and a fire that started in their basement.
Though arson seems to be ruled out, according to Saunders Volunteer Fire Chief Sherman Dellis, the explosion in a home with electric heat - and no gas - remains unexplained. An insurance adjuster looking at the house Monday said it was a total loss. He placed preliminary damage at $125,000; the De Sarts said they anticipated the figure will be greater after all their losses are tallied.
The insurance company probably will send in an investigative team to determine the cause of the explosion later this week, the adjuster said.
Dean and Phyllis De Sart moved to the lake home on Virginia 626 near Saunders Marina from New York after he retired from his job as an electronics engineer with International Business Machines. Since then, he has taken up real estate, working part time as an agent for Shoreline Realty. Phyllis De Sart, a retired schoolteacher, started painting landscapes and has sold them at local arts and crafts shows. They settled into a quiet life that revolved around boating, church and friends.
Their quiet life came apart with a boom shortly after 6:30 a.m. Sunday.
"About 6 o'clock, I was up and got a drink of water. Everything was quiet and peaceful. About 6:35, I woke up and looked at the clock. I didn't smell any smoke or anything. Minutes after that, the explosion occurred," Dean De Sart said. "It was just a big boom. It blew the door off our bedroom, and the bedroom window was partially blown off."
"I thought we were struck by lightning," Phyllis De Sart recalled. "It was so loud it woke everybody up in the neighborhood, even across the cove."
Dean De Sart ran to the living room looking for the source of the noise, past a hallway that led to the basement. He was struck by a wave of intense heat and flames and fled outside to the deck. Then, he realized his wife had not followed him.
He ran to the bedroom window, which was twisted and hanging from the house, and called out his wife's name.
She had gotten disoriented. She fell over a coffee table and made her way to the staircase that led to the deck.
"I could hear Dean yelling and calling for me," she said. Somehow, she doesn't know how, she moved a fallen door from her path, and ran to the deck through a wall of flame that singed her face and hands.
Dean De Sart had just wrenched the window loose and was ready to go back in the house for his wife when she appeared outside. "My God, I was so relieved," he said. "I didn't know where she was."
They ran to a neighbor's house and called 911. By that time, the house was engulfed.
The De Sarts were taken to Bedford County Memorial Hospital in their nightclothes, where they were treated for minor burns and released. Friends took them in for the night, lent them eyeglasses and bought clothes for them at Wal-Mart. On Monday, Dean De Sart had not replaced his hearing aid, which was melted by the fire.
"The community here has been wonderful," said Linda De Sart, their daughter-in-law. "They have gotten six or eight offers from people that want them to come and live with them as long as they need."
Meanwhile, the De Sarts are still looking for answers. "It boggled my mind," Dean De Sart said. "It's an all-electrified home, there's no gas, natural or propane, none of that stuff. One day we're comfortable and enjoying ourselves, and the next day we're wiped out."
Alluding to first the death of their son and then the destruction of their home, Phyllis De Sart said, "We've really been through it. We're being tested.
"My pastor tells me he knows that because the Lord saved me, there must be great things in store for me yet in this life."
by CNB