Cherokee County Man Pulled From House After Explosion, Nearby Worker Says

Investigators are trying to figure out what caused a deadly house explosion that left one dead. 

2/2/2018 Related Story: One Killed, One Flown To Hospital After Cherokee County Fire

News On 6 spoke with one of the people who went over to help just seconds after hearing the explosion.

Bobby Garcia works nearby at Greenleaf Nursery Company. He jumped into action as soon as he heard the explosion.

Fire poured out of what was left of the home after a massive explosion shook the building Bobby Garcia was working in, on the other side of the fence line. He immediately told his staff to call 911. 

"We jumped in a vehicle and started heading that way you know you could see the smoke, the dust, we still weren't sure if it was one of our buildings," Garcia said.  

Garcia said he and another person both trained in first aid arrived within a minute. When he got there, he said other employees were already on scene and had pulled a man from the home on fire. 

"He was pretty distraught you know was covered in blood, and he was hollering that somebody else had been in the house up in the front part of the house," Garcia said.  

First responders later found a woman under the rubble who was unrecognizable. A man was flown by helicopter to a Tulsa hospital. 

"We've had three or four house explosions in the last couple of years, every one of them seems to be different, this was, it looks pretty bad," said Cherokee County Undersheriff Jason Chennault.  

Garcia said it was a scary scene and that at one point he, along with other people, was trying to fight the fire with extinguishers but they were no match. 

"The walls were completely blown out, the ceiling had falling in, you know the roof was basically down at eye level with us at that point," Garcia said.  

At the nursery, Garcia said there was damage to employees vehicles, who park just on the other side of the fence. He said some even live in the house behind the explosion and thankfully none were hurt. In the meantime, he said his heart hurts for the people involved. 

"I hope he's recovering and doing well … anytime there's a loss of life you know you hate that those types of things happen," said Garcia. 

The undersheriff said it doesn't appear that anything criminal happened. Investigators are still trying to figure out the cause.