Home explosion blows man into front yard as rubble traps woman, MI cops say
A fiery, early morning home explosion threw a 38-year-old into his front yard and buried a 37-year-old woman under the rubble of her home, Michigan police said.
Rescuers pulled them from the rubble around 5:45 a.m. on April 3 and rushed them to the hospital for treatment for severe burns, Southgate police detective Sgt. Nathan Mosczynski said in a news conference posted by WXYZ.
The 37-year-old woman died from her injuries at the hospital, police told WJBK. She suffered severe burns and trauma to her leg, according to police.
“I’ve never seen something to this extent,” Mosczynski said.
The blast was so severe that a couch in the front room flew through the front bay window of the home, police said.
Police were able to rescue the man immediately after they arrived on scene, Mosczynski said, but the woman was trapped next to an active fire. Fire crews eventually pulled the woman out.
The blast rattled the neighborhood, police said, and scattered debris across several blocks in the area.
A neighboring home was damaged during the explosion, Mosczynski said. A woman in the home suffered minor head trauma when she fell during the blast, but she refused rescue, police said.
Officials are treating the explosion as a “gas-related” incident, but the exact cause of the blast is still under investigation, according to police.
Southgate is about a 15-mile drive southwest from Detroit.
This story was originally published April 3, 2025 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Home explosion blows man into front yard as rubble traps woman, MI cops say."
