A time to heal for explosion victims: Process painful, slow

Bushland family counts its blessings

By David Pittman

david.pittman@ amarillo. com

Publication Date: 11/26/09

Jose Alfredo Torres sometimes spends his nights sleeping in a hard,upright chair next to his daughter's bed at a Lubbock hospital.

His family's care is his only concern now. Gone are his business, homeand belongings in Bushland - all consumed by a massive natural gaspipeline explosion early this month.

He spends his days tending to his wife and daughter, still hospitalized from burns suffered in the blast.

"For the moment, my goal is just to wait here for them," said Torres, a50-year-old Mexican immigrant who's careful to enunciate to overcomehis thick accent.

But before his family rebuilds its life inBushland, Torres' days are spent awash in fluorescent lighting in this10-room hospital ward.

"This is my house now," he said, referring to the burn unit at University Medical Center in Lubbock.

"Everything is here," he said. "I have nothing over there," in Bushland.

While many Panhandle families gather around a dinner table today tocount their blessings, the Torres family members are thankful theystill have one another.

Their home was about 50 yards from wherea 24-inch pipeline ruptured, sparking an explosion and fire that couldbe seen and heard in Amarillo, as far as 20 miles away. Emergencypersonnel from three counties descended on Bushland that night, withthe red and blue lights of their vehicles joining with the flames tolight up the nighttime sky.

The fireball reduced the Torres home on Laramie Drive in north Bushland to ashes and nearly claimed their lives.

"For one moment, I thought to myself, 'We are gonna die,'" Torresrecalled while sitting on a table in the burn unit of the Lubbockhospital.

Other homes had only minor damage compared with thatof the Torreses, who lost everything they own, including the familyupholstery business.

The Torreses were the only ones whoneeded hospital care as a result of the explosion. They've becomewell-known figures at the Lubbock hospital where they have spent mostof their time since the Nov. 5 explosion.

"She's gonna be here for a long time," Torres said, referring to his 15-year-old daughter, Franczeska.

And her father will be like a shadow, always nearby.

Sounded Like Thunder

Young Daniel Torres remembered the time on his bedroom clock: 1:12 a.m.

The blast sounded like thunder in the middle of the house. The force was so great, it threw 8-year-old Daniel from his bed.

"I knew it was the gas line before I opened my eyes," his father said.

The family awoke to find its house illuminated in an orange glow fromflames described by emergency personnel as 700 feet tall.

"It was like an earthquake, but they don't last as long," Torres said of the rumbling.

After springing from bed to check on his daughter at the far end of thehouse, Torres returned to find his wife standing in front of a closetdoor, guarding Daniel, who was inside.

"This is a tornado," Agnieszka Eugenia Torres yelled to her husband above the roar of the fire geyser.

"No," he shouted, as ceiling fans and other items crashed to the floor. "This is no tornado."

The family scrambled to the garage, where the father flung open thedoor, allowing them to retreat from the flames and heat. But fire wasconsuming the grass in the neighborhood, giving few options forfleeing.

Franczeska saw holes in the garage roof as the heat began to eat through.

"The workshop was melting already at the top," Torres said of thebuilding adjacent to his house, where he upholsters furniture for anAmarillo interior designer. "We had no way to go inside. The house wasno more."

Heat already had shattered his pickup's windshield. The vehicle's paint was melting.

"At that moment, I said we've got to go because the gasoline is going to explode," Torres said.

The family turned to find the 4-foot-tall chain-link fence surrounding the house blocking their path.

"You could see the steam from the gate," he said. The father kicked open the gate door to escape.

"By then, my kids were screaming because it was so hot."

The family ran across the street to the home of Greg Herring and cut through his house, rushing to safety to the north.

"From the road, somebody picked us up and took us to the hospital," heexplained. "From this moment, nobody knew if we were alive or not,because the house was burned down."

To this day, Torres doesn'tknow the Samaritans' identities. He only described them as a couple intheir 50s who drove them in their sport utility vehicle to NorthwestTexas Hospital.

"Every second was just a matter of life or death," Torres said.

The flames that circled the home never struck the family members, butthe fire's extreme heat made their skin blister and caused injuriesfrom which they still are recovering.

"Nothing touched us," the father said, nursing a burn on his left cheek three weeks later, "just the heat."

It was the heat that melted patio furniture and window blinds in housesacross the street. Firefighters were rotated through the area of theexplosion because the heat prevented them from lingering too long.

Torres had thrown clothes and jackets over his family's heads beforethey ran for safety, but Franczeska had a sleeveless jacket coveringher head. The parts of her head and body left exposed receivedextensive burns; she suffered the worst injuries of the four.

Serious burns covered about 30 percent of the girl's body, eventuallyleaving her in a cotton gauze shawl. The Bushland High School sophomorehas been in a Lubbock hospital since that morning.

AgnieszkaTorres, 38, suffered serious burns on her ankles where her nightgownstopped midcalf. The clothing appears to have protected her fromfurther injury. She spent less than a week at Northwest Texas Hospital,but she was admitted to UMC earlier this week for follow-up surgeries.

Remarkably, Daniel, having worn pajamas and socks, was physically unharmed.

A Ward Is Their Home

Torres practically lives in a windowless hospital ward, bouncing fromRoom No. 10, where his daughter stays, to Room No. 7, occupied by hiswife.

He has gotten used to eating his daughter's leftovers or making trips to the UMC cafeteria with Daniel.

The recovery process is far from over for the family.

Nurses wash Franczeska's wounds daily, about 9:30 a.m., an excruciating process that causes her to scream and cry.

"Sometimes I stay here 24 hours," Torres said. "If she needs me, I stay all night."

Franczeska is eyeing another month in the Lubbock hospital, with more skin-graph surgeries to her head on the horizon.

Agnieszka Torres had surgery Monday to graph skin to her badly burnedankles. She likely will stay in the hospital through the week.

"For me, the most important thing is them right now," Torres said of his wife and daughter.

Franczeska passes time between treatments and rehabilitation sessions text-messaging friends and reading.

Church members from Amarillo and Lubbock's Jehovah's Witnessescongregations help Torres watch Daniel, a third-grader at BushlandElementary School, if he's not playing on a borrowed laptop or spendingtime with his father.

Daniel can't enter his mother or sister'srooms; hospital policy says he's too young. Agnieszka and Franczeskacan't enter each other's rooms, either, as rules dictate that patientsmust stay out of rooms occupied by other patients.

Rebuildingthe home and business will come later. In the meantime, the family hasseveral outstretched hands to help them along.

A Bushland familytook its house off the market to allow the Torreses to live there whenthey return from Lubbock. Another couple has lent them a car to usewhen they return.

The day of the blast, Bushland schools set up an account for donations to the family.

Even El Paso Natural Gas, the company that owned the ruptured pipeline, made a contribution.

"I don't know how much, but I hear they have made a donation into our account," Torres said.

No Return Home

Torres hasn't returned to view the ashes of his family's home, only seeing pictures others have shown him.

Not much has changed since that morning. The wind kicks at the ashescovering the foundation. Charred car frames sit where the garage oncestood.

The gas company has filled the crater, 5 yards deep and 30 yards across, created by the blast.

Despite the destruction caused by the ruptured pipe, Torres said he isn't angry at El Paso.

"It could happen in Bushland, could happen in Amarillo, could happen anywhere," he said. "Nothing can be perfect always."

Only a week passed before attorneys for the family filed a negligence lawsuit against El Paso in Potter County District Court.

"The bills are in our name, but they will pay," he said calmly, referring to his family's medical care.

Torres admits the family mood these days often is sullen as theTorreses shuffle between hospital and hotel rooms, but they're thefirst to acknowledge that times could be worse.

"We have everything, because we are alive," Torres said, "because we could be dead if we stayed there in that house."