Handling gas?
House explodes: “Like after an earthquake!”
Major operation Thursday morning in Styria: An explosion occurred in a detached house in Hart near Graz. A 72-year-old resident, whose birthday is today, was seriously injured. The fire department rescued him from the house, which was in danger of collapsing.
The elegant housing estate, where dramatic scenes unfolded in the morning hours, is idyllically situated in the countryside. "I heard a dull bang," says a woman who lives right next to the house that suddenly blew up. "My children thought something had happened at our house, all they saw was a white cloud of dust flying up." Another neighbor also ventured among the numerous media representatives. "I live not far from him and know the injured man from my student days. But I didn't hear anything in the morning," he says.
At 5.19 a.m., the siren of the Hart bei Graz volunteer fire department, whose fire station is just three minutes away from the scene, sounded. "Small fire with smoke development" was the initial report for the Florianis. But the supposedly harmless operation turned out to be a real challenge. "We learned from the control center that the house had partially collapsed," says incident commander Peter Preuß in an interview with the Krone. So it was clear: the utmost care and caution were required, there was a great danger! The experienced chief fire inspector quickly changed his tactics and packed a gas detector with his comrades.
"He even raised his hand"
When they arrived at the house, it turned out that the biggest area of damage was at the front. The entire wall of the house was no longer there, simply blown away! "I called into the house and actually got an answer. The man even raised his hand. At first it looked as if he was buried, like in an earthquake," says Preuß.
In order not to endanger anyone, he initially ventured to the seriously injured man alone, fighting his way through rubble and broken furniture. "He was lying on the bed, the cone of rubble next to him, so he wasn't buried." He then ordered three comrades to join him. Using crash rescue - the aim of which is to get the injured person out as quickly as possible - they rescued the 72-year-old, whose birthday is today of all days, from the house that was in danger of collapsing. To do this, they hoisted him into a stretcher and left the building as quickly as possible. "Everything together took about a minute," says Preuß, happy that everything went well so far.
They then handed the man over to the emergency doctor. The victim, a tax consultant, then underwent emergency surgery in hospital with burn injuries - around 30 percent of his skin is said to have been affected. His actual condition is not yet known. It is suspected that he was handling a gas cylinder, but it is not assumed that he was not involved. The State Office of Criminal Investigation is currently investigating.
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