Kentish Express Ashford & District
Of rescue drama
and had no idea what was going on. She had a little dog in her arms and she was really startled.
“She had a blank look on her face. I said: ‘Grab your bag. We have to go right now.’
“Then I went to another flat and tried to get this old boy out.
“I think he was Polish and he didn’t speak much English.
“I knocked on his door and tried to explain what happened but I think he thought I was selling something because he closed the door and said, ‘not today’. The police eventually got him out.
A couple of guys came down carrying a young guy who was living in the flat where the explosion happened.
“He was really badly burnt and they took him out to the ambulance. I can’t believe he got away with superficial burns.
“It was a miracle that he got away at all. It looked terrible.”
Mr Horne said more explosions followed as parts of the windows and wall burst from the property.
He said the flames had ripped through the entire building within 15 minutes.
He said: “The kids from the school would have been walking past the houses 20 minutes earlier. They would have been seriously injured. It could have been fatal and it’s just a miracle it wasn’t.
“I just can’t believe it. These poor people have lost everything.
“But the emergency services were brilliant. Ambulance, fire and police were all there in about four minutes and all seemed to arrive at the same time.
“I can’t fault them. They were amazing.” Richard Clive Johnson, 73, retired British Gas worker who also lives nearby, said: “I could see a man standing in what used to be his front room and everyone was shouting to get out. We saw him walk towards the stairs and he collapsed. Luckily they got him out and he wasn’t more seriously injured.” Donna Stagg, 33, a nursery nurse who lives nearby, said: “I was indoors when it happened but I spoke to Steven – it was his flat where the explosion happened. He has been rushed to a London hospital. The people from the flat below managed to pull him out after they smashed down his door.”
‘The entire roof went up into the air and the windows burst out’
Anna Barton, 35, a carer who lives nearby, said: “I walked past Little Knoll an hour before with my daughter and everything was fine. It’s just crazy how one hour before everything was fine, and just an hour later everything changes.”