Seven Sisters: House explosion family 'grateful to be alive'

A mother trapped with her children when an explosion ripped through their house has spoken of the terrifying moment she could hear them screaming.

Jessica Williams, and her two boys aged five and two, were inside their home in Seven Sisters, Neath Port Talbot, when it collapsed on 24 June.

Both children suffered severe burns, and Jessica was placed in a coma for a month.

Now Jessica has thanked neighbours who rescued her children.

After hearing her screaming, neighbours rushed into the family's home on Church Street, and pulled the two children from the rubble.

"When you look at the state that the house was in, to think that we all survived, it's just a miracle really. I'm just grateful that we're all here," she said.

Reuben, five and Elliott, two, both suffered burns to around 28% of their bodies, while their mother had to be placed in an induced coma for a month.

After 14 weeks in Morriston Hospital, Jessica - known as Jess - is now back with her family, and is determined to get back to full strength and one day to the family home.

She remembers everything about the blast, which South Wales Police has said was most likely caused by ageing LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) equipment and the hot weather.

On 24 June, she had been enjoying the summer sunshine with her two children.

"We had a lovely morning, they had great fun. Elliott napped on the way home and then we stopped at the house," she said.

There was nothing to suggest anything was wrong, until she opened the front door of their home, and the smell of gas was "overwhelming".

"I did panic slightly, so I sat them on the sofa and told them not to move," she said.

"I'm so glad I did, I just went to the oven. I can't really remember if it was ignited or not, but I went to turn the dial... and it just blew up straight away.

"It was so instant, I didn't have time to do anything differently. As soon as I turned it, it just blew up and threw me to the floor.

"Looking back I probably shouldn't have touched it, but I think when you're in a state of panic, you just do stuff, you don't really think do you? You just do it."

Trapped under a large American-style fridge which had fallen in the explosion, Jessica could hear her children screaming, but could not move.

"Hearing the boys scream was so awful, because I couldn't get them," she said.

"A load of men just ran in the house, I was just screaming, I literally thought, 'that's it, I'm going to die right here'."

The group of men, who she would later discover were neighbours, raced into the house, and tried to pull some of the rubble off her, but she was screaming for her children and just wanted them to be safe.

"There was a tiny little gap which I managed to push myself out of, because I just wanted to get out of there I was so scared," she said.

Remarkably, despite most of her body being covered in burns, Jessica managed to pull herself out of the rubble and stagger into her back garden.

"We had a load of steps up the back and I don't know how, but I managed to walk up them all to someone's house," she said.

"As far as myself and everyone around me was aware, it was just the burns to my skin, because I think I was bleeding and there were bits of skin hanging off me...so I didn't know there was anything internally wrong at the time.

"I could talk, I was breathing fine, I walked OK, I walked up the back garden with my flip-flops on and there were neighbours that were hosing me down, trying to sort the burns out until the emergency services arrived."

She was taken to Morriston Hospital to be treated in the specialised burns unit, while her two sons were airlifted to Southmead Hospital in Bristol.

Her condition deteriorated so rapidly in the ambulance that she was placed in an induced coma on arrival, one she would not wake up from for a month.

As well as the burns from the explosion, she had broken ribs, a punctured lung and her kidneys were failing.

At that time, her terrified father asked the surgeons what his daughter needed in order to get through her ordeal. "Luck" was their reply.

Meanwhile, after recovering well, Reuben and Elliott were discharged from hospital before their mother woke up.

"It was quite a blessing really that I was in a coma during the time I was in hospital because if I was just lying there I'd be losing my mind thinking how are they," she said.

When she finally woke up, she was totally unaware of the extent of the damage to her home until she was shown photographs.

"Because I was in the kitchen I could only see the damage to the kitchen, as far as I was aware the rest of the house was OK," she said.

"Little did I know it was absolutely ruined.

"I was really upset. It's not what I expected to see at all. It was my house, you know? To think my whole house was just rubble, it was awful to see, really awful."

Since the explosion, the community has rallied around in an attempt to rebuild the house, which was not insured, as well as two neighbouring properties.

One company, Ian Davies Plant Ltd, cleared the rubble "totally free of charge" to help the family.

"The men that were actually clearing everything said it would normally take about three days to clear up but it actually took him three weeks because he tried to go through everything he could to salvage important stuff for us," said Jessica.

She said the workers had recovered toys and photos of treasured memories from the wreckage, and she could not thank the community enough.

"I just can't say enough thank yous to people, we've had so many donations. I'm just blown away by all the support really, it's been amazing," she said.

Ms Williams said the support from her friends and family had been incredible, especially from her fiance Michael, who spent days visiting the boys in hospital while worrying about her.

More than a dozen neighbours helped pull the family from the house - by a stroke of luck, many of them happened to be retired or retained firefighters.

"I haven't met them, but I have messaged them just to say thank you because at the end of the day, they didn't know if something else was going to happen in the house, and they've risked their lives really coming in to help me," she said.

"I was literally screaming for help. If nobody had come, I don't know how long we would have been there for. I'm just so, so grateful for them coming to help me."

After 14 weeks in hospital, Jessica went home to her fiance and her two sons in October, but with their home still in ruins they are living in a relative's house.

While she is recovering well, she knows she faces severe challenges.

"A lot of it is building my strength back now and getting my energy levels back," she said.

"I lost all my muscle tone. So I've had to learn to walk again, move my arms, everything really. I'm just trying to do little bits to get my movement back in my arms and my legs."

In hospital, doctors also performed a tracheostomy, where a small opening is cut in the throat to allow air to enter the lungs.

Jessica had to learn how to swallow, eat and talk again. Her hearing was also badly damaged by the explosion, and doctors have said it might not return fully.

Before the explosion, Ms Williams worked as a pre-school leader at Ysgol Golwg y Cwm in Ystradgynlais, where her sons have now returned to school.

But despite struggling to move her right hand, she is determined to regain her strength and mobility, and get back to work and running around after the children again.

"It's going to take time to come to terms with everything, and our lives have completely changed," she said.

"That's a big thing to come to terms with, but I just think that we can rebuild our lives now and I'm positive that we can get back to happy times and move on and look to the future."

On top of her physical challenges, she has also had to come to terms with the change in her appearance.

"It is really difficult. If somebody had told me last year 'you're going to have loads of burn injuries', I'd have been devastated, and seeing them all for the first time at the hospital was really really hard," she said.

"It was so upsetting. But I'm just grateful really for being here."

"The boys are improving, I'm improving and I'm just happy that it's the best outcome we could have had really."

As for the house on Church Road, she said she was not yet ready to go back and see it, but at some point she does want to move home.

"I have passed it in the car which was really difficult. I haven't stopped there yet, because I just think that's a little bit too much for me at the minute," she added.

"We're going to try our best to live there because at the end of the day that's our home and that's where we were happy. Until I'm there, I don't know how we're going to feel."