Neighbors Being Called Heroes After Cabin Explosion

Timber Lakes, Wasatch County – Even in places that could pass as post cards, ugly things do happen.

“It was terrifying,” said Mary Hammond.

She was with her husband, Nate, at their Timber Lakes home in Wasatch County, when they heard something.

“Sometimes we get snow build up on the roof, and when it drops, it rumbles the house. And we kind of thought that’s what it was and we looked outside and that’s when we noticed their house was engulfed in flames,” she said.

She called 911.

Her husband ran outside to help.

“He could hear her screaming and he knew he needed to get in there,” said Hammond.

Two other neighbors, Eric Staton and Mark Pierce, also went in to help after hearing the explosion.

“I couldn’t believe the debris,” said Pierce. “The windows were shattered and there was sheet rock everywhere.”

When Pierce got there, he saw children by a car in the driveway.

“The kids were coming out and just saying ‘my mom is in there.” They thought she was dead,” said Pierce.

It turns out, the woman screaming for help was their mother.

She had told her children to stay in the car because she smelled gas inside the house when they arrived.

She was inside when the explosion happened.

As Mary Hammond watched from her deck, she started taking cell phone video of the house.

She was worried about her husband and it felt like they were in there forever.

“He was in there a long time,” she said. “I thought there’s no way that they were recovering anyone or anything.”

It took a while because the woman was trapped on the floor.

“She had a couch or a big beam or something across her,” said Pierce.

The three men were able to pull her out.

In Hammond’s cell phone video, you can see them pulling her out into the snow just before the cabin collapsed.

“I think, literally, it was in the nick of time. There were flames right there,” said Pierce. “Honestly, if we wouldn’t have been there, the fire department, they wouldn’t have been able to get to her in time. Because she had debris on her and she was down in the basement.”

We asked Pierce why he went in there knowing he was risking his life.

“I don’t know,” he said as his eyes started to fill with tears. “I mean, I would like to think somebody would try to save my wife, so.”

The cabin is a total loss, but the woman is alive.

She was in surgery at a burn unit and had to be placed in a medical coma.

She was listed in critical, but stable, condition when crews brought her in.

All thanks to neighbors who decided to do something.

“I’m just glad she’s alive,” said Pierce.

The Wasatch County Fire Marshal and fire crews were back at the house Saturday afternoon trying to determine exactly what caused the explosion.