‘I looked out and just saw flames’: Neighbor recounts harrowing Greece house explosion
GREECE, N.Y. — Just before 5 a.m. Monday, the house along Stone Road just blew up. Miraculously, three people inside were able to escape.
Tuesday, News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke went back to the scene to get an update on the investigation.
There wasn’t much left of the home that once stood there. Most of what’s in the huge piles of debris, were pulled from the basement which most of the home collapsed into.
Tom Corsi lives next door, the explosion woke him up and the wind blew the intense flames onto his home.
“Jumped out of bed, my side of the bed is facing the window, I looked out and just saw flames and I told my wife, fire fire, next door house is on fire, I think ours is too, the AC unit was on fire, the patio was on fire,” Corsi said.
When they ran outside, they saw the man, woman and their adult daughter had gotten themselves out.
“I have no idea how they got out, I did hear the wife I guess someone offered to put some shoes on but I guess she said her feet, the soles of her feet were burned and the daughter, saw in the middle of the road not sure if she had any burns or injuries to her,” Tom said.
The Barnard Fire District was on the scene within minutes.
“They were talkative enough to be able to say that there was three of us and they were able to do a quick check and they realized they had three victims out, we’ll still do a search around the building and in order for us to determine whether to go in, we have to make sure it’s safe because at the end of the day, we have to make sure our responders are safe,” said Lt. Dave Carstairs of the Barnard Fire District.
All three are expected to survive, although the mother is listed in guarded condition.
Jennifer spoke with first responders about some of the challenges they faced at this scene.
“Yesterday, there were wires on the road so that for us, makes us think a little bit more. I can’t have companies coming in from this side of Stone Road because of electrical wires and if RG&E is not on scene quick, those wires are always treated as live, so I’m worried about my crew, I’m worried about people who are in the house, I’m worried about getting some water on that fire because the quicker we put the fire out, the quicker we can do some searches and try to figure out what’s going on,” Carstairs said.
The fire department didn’t have to wait for an ambulance to start helping the victims, because it has a paramedic on every rig.
“It’s nice to have the paramedics arriving on scene too so if there are injuries that are a little more than your EMT can handle, we have that ability to have paramedics be able to start IVs, and heart monitoring and stuff like that,” Carstairs said.
RG&E was on-scene all day Monday and well into the overnight hours, the utility tells News10NBC it’s working with the Monroe County Fire Bureau to determine what caused the explosion.
Regardless of how long it takes to rebuild, most of the people in this neighborhood are just thankful the family who lived here survived considering just how intense and powerful this explosion was.
As of 5:30 Tuesday night, the daughter remains in guarded condition at Strong Memorial Hospital and the man and woman are stable.
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