Five years ago, Laura Park was trapped beneath the rubble of her home, thinking she was going to die.
The Jasperite was one of 10 people rescued following an explosion in the Pyramid Riding Stables staff accommodation July 17, 2010.
The last thing she remembers before waking up trapped face down beneath two wooden beams was a flash of red.
“I had turned the shower on and was waiting for it to get warm. I was standing there in a towel and then I shut the door and put my hand over the shower door and then I just remember seeing red.”
Park’s boyfriend at the time was also in the explosion. She credits him, as well as the Jasper Volunteer Fire Brigade, for saving her life.
“Jesse could hear me screaming,” she recalled last week, just days before the anniversary of the explosion. “At that point I thought it was just me. I thought the stairs had just fallen. I had no idea. So, he came and he was shielding himself from these flames, burns all over his face, just to tell everyone where I was, and then I could start hearing everyone’s names being screamed and I kind of figured out what was going on.
“As Jesse was saying ‘help is coming, help is coming,’ I had two boards crisscrossed over my shoulders and my legs were up behind me.
“I could see this much,” she said using her hands to create a small circle in front of her eyes, “and there was all flame behind him and at that point I was saying, ‘go, go, get somewhere safe, get away.’
“I really was like ‘OK, I’m going to die, stop screaming, don’t freak anyone out, this is it, this is my time.’”
While Park was pinned inside the building, outside a guest at the stables was collecting everyone he could find, pulling them out of the rubble and away from the flames.
Justin Byrne had heard the explosion from his cabin up the hill and ran out to discover that the roof of the building had been blown off, three of the walls had crumbled and people had been thrown huge distances by the sheer power of the blast.
It was just after 11 p.m.
After realizing it wasn’t a meteor or a bomb, but an explosion, Byrne traded his flip flops for shoes while his wife called 911 and he ran into the fiery debris, collecting stunned and injured staff members and placing them gently in the grass, away from the flames.
Three years after the explosion, Byrne was recognized by the Governor General of Canada with a medal of bravery for his contribution that night.
Fire Chief Greg Van Tighem was the first responder on the scene.
He said with the memory still so vivid in his mind, it’s hard to believe it’s been five years.
“It was like stepping into—I don’t even know how to describe it—it was like armageddon or something, everything wasn’t where it should have been and the building was basically gone and everything was on fire.
“It was just chaos. There was people screaming, there was smoke, fire, heat, the building was in a million pieces all over the place, some larger than others, it was just utter pandemonium.”
Van Tighem had been at a neighbourhood barbecue with a number of Parks Canada wardens and visitor safety staff when he got the call.
He rushed to his truck and threw on his gear—minus his socks, which he couldn’t find, forcing him to spend 12 hours barefoot in his rubber boots while he directed the response and conducted the initial investigation.
When he arrived at the stables, Van Tighem said his focus was on determining who was on the scene and who was missing.
“The first thing I wanted to do was to establish if there was anyone inside what was left of the building.
“There was one girl, Laura, who was pinned under a big beam, with fire behind her, and there was also another girl that was walking out of the rubble and I ended up grabbing her, she was in shock,” said Van Tighem.
“She just appeared out of the smoke and she had bare feet and was just walking out of the rubble. I don’t know how she did it, it was hard to even get close to her it was so hot. I guess that was the shock.
“Laura’s boyfriend was there, too. He was right there screaming at me to get her out—he tried and he couldn’t, she was stuck good.
“The first truck in, that was their assignment. I said, ‘I don’t care what you do, get her out of there.”
“One of the things that saved me was the water was running,” recalled Park.
“There was a two-foot crawl space under the whole staff accom and all the pipes came right up from there and when the shower collapsed, I went down and the water pipe from the bathroom was still continually running because I had turned the shower on.”
As the flames surrounded her, the water kept her safe, she said.
When the firefighters arrived to get her out, they used a chainsaw to cut the beams over her shoulders. Then she had to push her way out, breaking her jaw in the process. That was just one of a number of injuries she sustained, including a fractured ankle, a split lip, burns, lacerations and, her most persistent injury, three fractured vertebrae.
“When they got me out, I was trying to count everyone because I was manager at the time and I was freaking out—I had totally forgotten that two girls weren’t there, one worked in town and one was away, I totally forgot and I was yelling at them to go back and find them.
“I was in shock. It was a bit of a whirlwind.”
Park, along with the nine other victims, was taken to Seton Healthcare Centre with non-life threatening injuries. Sophie Graveline, who was blown out of the building in an armchair, suffered a fractured shoulder, bad concussion and a bleeding liver. Another girl suffered a spine fracture, while Talisa Chelick suffered two broken legs and was transferred to Edmonton for surgery.
Following the explosion, the Jasper Fire Department conducted an investigation and determined the blast was caused by a gas line leak.
“Origin of fuel source has been identified as a leak in the gas line fitting where it branched off of the hot water tank line to supply a stove in the office room,” states the report. “Over a period potentially upwards of several weeks the propane gas accumulated undetected in the crawl space below the structure until such time as the optimum air/gas mixture contacted the burners in the hot water tank and ignited.”
Park said it took her awhile to stop blaming herself for the blast.
“When I turned on the shower, it just happened to be a really calm night and the propane had settled underneath and then when the boiler flame went on it just kind of went whoosh.
“I know now that even though it was my fault, it wasn’t my fault because we didn’t know.
“That was a hard thing to get over: what if I never had a shower?”
Since the explosion, each year a group of survivors has gotten together to mark the anniversary. Park said this year is the first time the reunion hasn’t happened.
Usually the group would go out for a trail ride and talk about what’s happened in the last year, catching up on each other’s recoveries.
“We kind of talk about what’s going on now and how everyone’s doctors appointments are going,” she said. “It’s kind of a weird thing to get together and celebrate, but we all survived, so why not?”
This year, Park would have had good news to share. A week before the anniversary, she booked an appointment to see a surgeon about her back.
“I’ve been waiting five years,” she said, noting that every other surgeon has told her she’s too young for back surgery. “I’ve lost four inches in height because my disks are so badly damaged, but the surgeons say I’m too young.
“I’m hoping something will get done because it’s just been crazy trying to live a normal life. It’s made me feel like I’m 40.”
Her appointment is Oct. 13.
Nicole Veerman
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