Woman talks about what it was like to be in exploding house

Sophie Graveline says she doesn’t remember what it was like to be at Pyramid Riding Stables staff cabin when it blew up around 11:30 p.m. on July 17, but she’ll be remembering the injuries she took in the blast for a long time.

Graveline, 23, who started working at the stables last year, suffered a broken right shoulder blade, three broken ribs, a lacerated liver, a cracked skull and a major concussion.

“It hurts, yeah, I’m not gonna lie,” said Graveline over the phone in Jasper on August 2. “I was getting out of the shower the other night, and I heard a crack and it hurt and thought it might be another rib, but it was just a pulled muscle. I’m just hobbling around now.”

Graveline said that she can’t remember the moments leading up to the time that her home exploded. Friends have told her that they were watching a movie, Zombieland, and that they had gone into town earlier to buy some dinner. Those details make sense to Graveline, but she can’t remember them on her own. Doctors have told her that in major concussions, the events leading up to just before the concussion happened can be forgotten, or in this case, literally blown out of Graveline’s brain.

She’s been told she was sitting in a large chair when the explosion happened. She surmises that the chair may have saved her life and lessened her injuries. She thinks she was probably blasted out of a window in the chair and its padding helped cushion her being thrown 30 feet to the ground.

“Pretty lucky chair, really,” said Graveline. The chair was found next to her on the driveway at the stables when emergency responders arrived, but has since been thrown out. 

“It’s sorta too bad, I liked that chair.”

Graveline said that consciousness and her memory didn’t really come back to her until some three days after the blast. She woke up in a hospital in Edmonton not really knowing how she got there. Friends and family told her that she was irate after the accident and abused some of the ambulance drivers and doctors. Graveline said she doesn’t remember that at all, but has gone back to ambulance staff to apologize.

“I feel so bad. I can’t believe I did some of that stuff,” said Graveline.

As for the rest of her summer, Graveline said that her plans of riding and working with horses and hanging out with her friends at the stable are now kaput. She’ll be heading back home to her family in Ontario soon, where she’s not really sure what she’ll do. Her focus will be on healing up most likely. Her mom is in Jasper now to help take care of her and help get organized to go back home. 

She said most of the other people caught in the explosion are also on their way out or have already left Jasper.

Graveline and the others have had to go because Pyramid Riding Stables has closed down for the rest of the summer. There are only a few horses left on the grounds; most have been put out to pasture. The victims of the explosion are now out of work. 

“MPL has been pretty good about paying for my lost stuff and some of the other costs, but to make a living on your own, you kinda need to work,” said Graveline.

Even if the stables were open, Graveline wouldn’t be able to work. Doctors have said that due to her concussion, she won’t be able to ride a horse for up to a year, a tough call for a girl who has spent much of her life riding horses.

“I’ll just head back to Ontario and heal up and just do nothing for a little while,” said Graveline. “I’ll get to see family and old friends and all of that, so it won’t be so bad, but, yeah, I guess it is a bit of a bummer.”