HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1987-10-14, Page 39Page 14
Explosion hospitalized two in 1981
Clinton News -Record
August 26, 1981
Two people remain hospitalized near -
1N one week after an explosion rocked
the Huron Day Centre For The Home-
bound at Huronview.
Sandra Davidson, of Goderich, ac-
tivities co-ordinator for the Day Centre,
and Vera Thiel of Zurich, a day-care
participant, still remain in Clinton
Public Hospital recovering from
bruises, lacerations and burns.
Nine other people were also treated
at the hospital for injuries in the explo-
sion that blasted a small wing at the
county home for the aged on August 20.
Day care co-ordinator Rosemary
.Armstrong. day care client Shirley
Haggerty of Clinton and Huronview
resident Irwin Trewartha were also
hospitalized overnight following the ac-
cident. Day care clients Ann Dennis fo
Zurich, May Gibson of Clinton. Barbara
Bellfleur of Clinton, Olive Hardy from
Exeter. Ann Dykstra of Clinton and
Elizabeth Alexander of Exeter were
treated for cuts and bruises and releas-
ed the day of the accident.
The Huron Day Care Centre offers
daily programs and activities for home-
bound people, and on Thursday after-
noon the participants were playing
cards at outside tables and working on
crafts when an explosion blasted the
walls and windows at the centre and ad-
joining auditorium.
Karen Scruton, another worker at the
Centre who escaped injury, said that 21
people had eaten lunch in the heavily
damaged auditorium just an hour and a
half before the explosion happened. She
noted that Thursday was a quiet day at
the Centre and luckily the• accident
didn't occur a day earlier when the
auditorium would have been filled with
stroke patients.
Mrs. Scruton had just left her desk
and gone to the back of the building
when an electric water pump started,
igniting fumes from a broken gasoline
line and exploding in the underground
line.
• When I returned to my desk it was a
complete mess," she remembered. "It
was just awful. there was so much
Mood."
While several people in the Day Care
Centre were not injured, those playing
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Carol & Staff
SEWING • BRIDAL • KNITTING *CONSULTANTS
17 Victoria St.
Clinton 482-7036
cards outside were thrown from their
chairs and struck by flying glass from
nearby windows.
Mrs. Scruton and Day Care
volunteers calmly guided people away
from the building through a back door-
way to avoid seeing the injured and the
wreckage. Even though she was afraid
of possibilites of a second eplosion, she
noted, "No one panicked. We've done
the fire drill so many times we knew
immediately what to do."
Some of the Day Care—c`iients are
unable to walk, others need assistance
and Mrs. Scruton said, "The volunteers
were just great. I couldn't have gotten
the people out myself."
Jim Allaway of Vanastra was one
volunteer who helped take the people
outside and he noted, "I admired the
stroke patients, they took it so well."
Although he was tossed around by the
explosion, Mr. Allaway said he wasn't
afraid and explained, "I was in
England during the war so I had a few
bombs drop around me."
In the past there have been false fire
Tum to page 16
CONGRATULATIONS
TO THE
DAY CENTRE
ON 10 YEARS
OF SERVICE
All the best from
Rob and staff at
CLINTON PHARMACY
46 KING ST.
CLINTON, ONT.
Phone 482-5037
ROB KLEIN B. SC. PHM.