By Krissy Moreau
Horrified neighbours have relived the moment two Dunedin teenagers, screaming and on fire, staggered from a house that had just exploded.
The pair had been huffing gas from an LPG canister and is lucky to be alive.
The explosion was so powerful, the LPG bottle was blown across the room and knocked out an internal wall.
Glass was blown out of windows, tiles from the roof.
Neighbour Shirley Larsen saw one of the teenagers emerge from the house.
“His hair was all on fire,” she says. “His hands were all…the skin was just peeled back off his hands and were just bleeding and he ran up to me and he says ‘help me lady, help me’.”
Jamie Jury, 18, and his friend Brendon Mcleod, 17, had been huffing, or inhaling LPG to get high.
But the gas built up in the room and eventually exploded, sparked by the naked flame of a gas heater.
“He was down on his hands and knees, screaming out,” says neighbour Lyall Larson.
“One of them was asking for hot water to be tipped on to him because his nerve ends were so damaged that he felt cold,” says East Otago Fire Service assistant area commander Trevor Tilyard.
Luckily, first-aid treatment was close, with fire officers already in the area – so close, in fact, they didn't know they were in danger themselves.
“Just as they were about to enter the building to extinguish the fire there was another explosion,” says Mr Tilyard.
In total, three LPG bottles exploded. The pair will have to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives.
“These two young men are going to take a very, very, very long time to recover,” says Mr Tilyard. “It will be painful – many operations. It will take months and months if not years if they ever fully recover from this.”
The pair are both in the Intensive Care Unit at Dunedin Hospital. Jamie Jury's family have told 3 News he's not doing well. He is in an induced coma and it's likely he'll be flown to Middlemore Hospital in Auckland for more treatment.
Jamie Jury's family now have to juggle being by his side in Auckland and repairing their burnt out home.
3 News