After her house was completely destroyed by a large gas explosion, a woman made a spectacular escape over her falling chimney.
Because she had COVID-19, Tamara McLean was unable to detect the gas leak in her home. On the final day of her quarantine, she was.
The 45-year-old special education teacher and mother from Maine claimed she could hear her hair sizzling and felt like her face and body were on fire.
While placing laundry in the dryer, McLean unintentionally started the leak.
She had no idea that a leak was letting gas into the house. When she pressed the dryer button, her house exploded immediately.
It was Tamara’s final day of quarantine, so she was leaving with her friends. Tamara explained that she had COVID-19, which prevented her from being able to taste or smell.
“An explosion went off as I was walking up from my basement after pressing the dryer button.”
It blew me back, but I grabbed hold of the wall and tried to understand what had happened because you don’t often experience a sensation like that, which feels like a blast of hot air passing through you.
“I was burned, and I could hear the sizzle in my hair.” I could feel the burns on my face and arms, but I was unsure of their extent.
Mrs. McLean continued, “I completed racing up the stairs and raced outside. I started watching bits of my house fall that were ignited on fire.
Getting out was my main priority, so I didn’t look around, but it was clear that my house had blown up.
I was thinking, “I need to get aid right now,” since I was in survival mode.
My chimney was blown down, and I had to jump over it because my door was already open.
Tamara was able to manage getting into her car and travelling 4.2 miles to the closest fire station, where she was then flown to the intensive care unit.
Almost a third of her body was covered in second-degree burns.
As Tamara lay in the burns unit with horrific injuries, shocking images show how the blast destroyed her home, leaving it a burning mass of wreckage around a burnt out shell.
Nearly a year after the explosion on October 15, 2013, the special needs teacher is still receiving skin treatments.
Embden, Maine resident Tamara said: “I got in my car – I had left my keys in the car because I live in a tiny town – I clicked the 911 assist button and drove 4.2 miles to the fire station and that’s where I got help.”
“I don’t know that I was in that much agony when it first happened since I was in shock,” the person said.
Tamara recovered in the burn unit at Maine Medical Center in Portland for a month.
Her face, arms, feet, and back all had second-degree burns, which doctors cleansed and treated.
After a week, doctors closed her wounds by stapling artificial skin over the raw flesh.
After making a remarkable recovery, the mother was released from the hospital only to learn that the blast had completely destroyed her home and all of her belongings.
Your insides are truly burning when you are in a gas explosion like that, according to Tamara.
Your insides are burned and swollen, so you only have four to six hours to get intubated in order to survive.
The suffering is severe. The only thing I can think of to compare it is to imagine that you are using sandpaper and salt water to scrub at a large open wound. Sincerely, there is no similarity.
The time it took to change my bandages once, according to my daughter, was almost four hours since they had to keep pausing because the agony was so excruciating.
“My house is totally gone.” It was blowing so hard and far that it toppled trees in the forest.
Nothing at all, not even a toothbrush, was left. Everything just vanished.
Tamara had to go back for checkups every week after she was discharged from the hospital; ultimately, this reduced to once a month. She still has regular appointments today.
Later this year, she will begin laser treatment on the part of her body that is most severely damaged. Her arms suffered from contracture, an unpleasant tightening of the skin, which limited her mobility.
Tamara has been coping with the emotional stress of the change in her physical appearance, having lost all of her hair in the blast and been left with scarring from her burns, in addition to the impact on her health.
Tamara claimed: “I have to massage my arms every day because they burn the most and I can’t stay in the sun.”
I have to wear a silicone-filled garment that covers my shoulder on one side and my elbow on the other, with the exception of when I’m taking a shower or washing them.
“My hair was shaved when I woke up [in the hospital]; before that, it was long.
They prescribed me medication to lower my metabolism because it burns up all the calories needed for healing, resulting in weight gain and further scarring.
It’s quite difficult right now. Since everything happened, my identity has entirely changed.
According to the mother, a local fire marshal found that her home’s ground level was where the leak originated because of how the house erupted.
However, Tamara claims that because of the explosion’s damage, they were unable to identify the precise cause. Investigations continue to be conducted.
Her insurance provider is paying for her temporary accommodation in the interim, as well as the renovation of her devastated home.
In the future, Tamara wants to educate others about the dangers of gas leaks and to get them to use their home detectors more cautiously.
I’m now using oil instead of propane, Tamara declared.
“I would recommend taking whatever preventative measure you can, even if it costs a little money, and ensuring that your gas supplier is conducting inspections correctly.
They do make alarms for propane, however they are not required to be installed in homes like fire alarms, and I firmly believe they should be.