DALLAS — An elderly couple was injured when their Ellis County home exploded in the early hours of Friday morning, leaving them with serious burns. Fortunately, they both will recover, their son Garry Holveck said Saturday.
Debbie and Danny Holveck, 74 and 72 years old respectively, are being treated at Parkland Hospital in Dallas after the blast along Ike Road near Waxahachie reduced their house to its foundation and blew chunks of metal into the trees.
"Considering what happened, it was a complete miracle [they lived]," Garry Holveck said.
A county official said he'd been told a propane device inside the home was to blame for the blast. Garry Holveck said he'd smelled gas when at the house earlier in the week, but hadn't been able to find the source or any leak and that the smell eventually seemed to dissipate.
He said his mom suffered a heart attack during the blast and had burns on her legs. About 40% of his father's body was covered in burns, he said, mostly on his arms and face. He also has a broken shoulder blade and fractures in his back.
"We are taking it day-by-day, minute-by-minute, second-by-second," said Mashelle Holveck, Garry's wife and the victims' daughter-in-law. "They survived that by the hands of God and that’s the only way they did it."
According to the Waxahachie Fire Department, a Waxahachie fire captain, Billy Vest, who lives nearby, showed up and helped pull the man and his wife out of the home. Vest treated the pair with others at the scene until emergency crews could arrive.
"The husband was under the house a little bit. We got him out and into the street and triaged him a little bit with no medical equipment. I did the same with the wife and started calling for help. You could tell it was a huge explosion, and two people walked away from it. It's just a miracle -- right place, right time," he told WFAA Friday.
Vest, who has been with the Waxahachie Fire Department for 19 years, said the explosion like no other woke him up like an alarm clock.
Garry Holveck is glad Vest was there to help.
"This day and age you don’t really know your neighbors like you used to, but things like this -- you find out right fast the type of people that are around you," he said. "It reassures you of the humanity of the world, there’s still good people."
The family is fundraising for the future with a GoFundMe account shared with WFAA by a family friend.
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