THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406180223
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940618 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
As family members of Kevin Fitzpatrick gathered at the burn trauma unit at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, police said the burn patient's prognosis was poor.
{REST} The 32-year-old man suffered the burns when the explosion shook his single-family home in the 1000 block of Old Dam Neck Road, showering the neighborhood with debris as the structure went up in flames.
Two neighbors rushed to help Fitzgerald and his roommate escape.
``Kevin came out naked and all burned,'' said Randy Hardin, 29. ``He looked like a melted candle . . . his skin was just rolling off.'' In stark contrast, Fitzpatrick's roommate emerged dressed and carrying his shoes. ``He was clean. It was weird,'' Hardin said.
Fitzpatrick, who works at Virginia Beach KOA, a campground off General Booth Boulevard, was airlifted by Nightingale helicopter ambulance to Sentara Norfolk.
The cause of the explosion and fire, which reduced the frame house to rubble in minutes, was under investigation.
The initial blast - followed by at least two smaller explosions - was so powerful that it blew out windows of a brick house next door and melted its vinyl rain gutters and an air conditioner. Debris flew hundreds of feet and power lines were snapped and thrown onto the ground and a parked car.
Nearby residents said they were practically thrown from their beds by the 12:26 a.m. explosion.
``I heard the explosion and just called 911,'' said Larry Schafer, 31, an aircraft mechanic at the Naval Aviation Depot. ``It was nothing like I've ever heard before. It shook everything in the house.''
``I heard this big boom and I thought a car had hit my shed,'' Hardin said. He ran outside to find the house next to his wrecked and in flames.
``The whole corner was blown clean away. The front and side walls were gone and there was a big hole where the roof had been'' over that part of the house, Hardin said.
Hardin, fearing the spread of the flames, shouted to everyone in his home to flee. He then ran to the burning house where he was joined by Schafer. They could hear people trapped inside, pleading for help.
They tried to force the front door open, but the explosion had shifted the structure. The door frame was warped so badly that the door was blocked by the floor boards inside.
``I was charging into it with my shoulder,'' Schafer said. ``But it was so twisted, it wouldn't budge. Fortunately, ``. . . the other man in the house was alert enough to take (Fitzpatrick) to the back door.''
As Hardin and Schafer ran to the back, flames were leaping skyward over their heads. Despite that, they pressed on.
``All I was worried about was getting people out of the house,'' said Schafer, who said he and Fitzpatrick had been friends for more than seven years.
Hardin and Schafer were able to kick in the back door. ``There were flames all down the hallway and smoke was billowing out the door,'' Schafer said.
Hardin remembered warning that shattered glass was all around, but the barefoot Fitzpatrick just walked past in a daze, he said, ignoring glass shards on the grass.
Fitzpatrick was talking, Schafer said, but in a mumble. ``I don't know what he was saying.''
Charles Gravatt, 31, a Navy man who lives nearby and was among the scores of residents roused by the blast, rushed to offer medical aid.
Gravatt, a volunteer with Virginia Beach Emergency Medical Services, grabbed a medical kit from one of the first two fire trucks to reach the scene and tended Fitzpatrick until paramedics arrived.
Fire Department spokesman Chase Sargent said authorities would not speculate on the cause of the blast until their investigation was complete.
Whatever the cause, Sargent said the explosion was powerful. Walking around the smoldering debris early Friday, he used his flashlight to point out evidence of the blast's intensity.
``You see that,'' Sargent said, shining the beam on what appeared to be a perfectly flat porch extending from the front of the house. ``That's the front wall.''
While it appeared that the front wall had simply blown over, a side wall took a more dramatic flight. It lay flat on the ground, its base six feet from the foundation of the house. Smoke curled skyward from parts of it.
All that was left standing was a blackened skeleton of the house. The roof - which was not blown away - collapsed into the debris as it burned. It appeared unlikely that anything could be recovered.
A singed stereo and a speaker lay on the ground nearby. Several empty cans of beer were scattered around.
Next door, the front yard was littered with debris, including pieces of wall and roofing that sheared off leaves and small limbs as they flew into trees. A large chunk of debris had landed on the roof. Two side bedroom windows were blown inward, all the glass shattered.
Karen Seachrist, 41, was asleep in one of those bedrooms when the blast erupted.
``I don't know if it jerked me out of that bed or if I flew out of that bed,'' she said as she looked over the damage. ``That was the God-awfullest noise I ever heard.'' She thought a car had rammed her home.
Despite the damage, Seachrist considered herself lucky. Her 18-year-old son, Bobby, was out when the blast hit. Only days earlier, she had rearranged her bedroom, moving a bureau with a tall mirror against the side window.
When she pulled that bureau aside Friday morning, she found shards of glass that might otherwise have showered her while she lay in bed.
``Oh, my God,'' she said. ``Oh, my God.''
{KEYWORDS} EXPLOSION INJURIES FIRE
by CNB