‘I think a house just blew up’: 911 calls document initial response to American Fork home explosion
Mar 22, 2024, 10:21 PM | Updated: 10:24 pm
AMERICAN FORK — Newly released 911 calls document the initial reaction and response to a home explosion Wednesday that left one woman dead.
Even though the explosion near 100 North and 300 East happened in the early morning, emergency calls quickly came in from a dozen callers.
“It looks like something’s on fire, but it shook the whole house,” one woman told a dispatcher. “It scared the crap out of me!”
Meanwhile, a neighbor called to report the explosion and said the blast had broken her windows.
“Yes, the house next door to me blew up,” the woman said. “It shattered all of our windows.”
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In the middle of it all, Jim Hopkinson, who lives in a cul-de-sac across from the duplex, also called in to report the explosion. By then, dispatchers were quickly assessing similar calls and moving to the next ones.
“It’s been reported, that’s what they told me,” Hopkinson said.
Hopkinson was one of the people who found the lone survivor of the explosion and shepherded her to safety.
“(She) seemed in good spirits, even the afternoon of the event,” he said.
He said the explosion sounded like a “bomb.”
“The roof on the back of the house ended up on our cul-de-sac, and the roof of the front of the house ended up in the other cul-de-sac,” Hopkinson said.
Police, as of Friday evening, still had not publicly identified the woman who died in the explosion. Meanwhile, a spokesman for American Fork Fire & Rescue said the investigation was ongoing.
A Dominion Energy spokeswoman said Friday there was no update, and the company was continuing to work closely with investigators.
Hopkinson and others were still trying to make sense of what happened.
“Things like this teach us what can go wrong,” he said. “You lose a neighbor to something like this. It’s just crazy.”
