Man killed in gas blast ‘would not have smelt fatal fumes’

A MAN who died in a gas explosion may not have been able to smell the fumes that could have filled his home in just an hour, a coroner heard yesterday.

Paul Wilmott, 63, was killed when his house in Haxby, York was completely demolished by the blast in February last year.

An inquest heard that the explosion was caused by the fracture of a corroded gas pipe that was buried in the concrete floor of Mr Wilmott’s 1970s-built house.

Steve Critchlow, a gas engineer and investigator for the Health and Safety Laboratory, told the inquest in York that the fracture had happened recently and there was no evidence gas was leaking for a significant amount of time.

He said: “I would imagine that probably an hour, maximum, would be enough to create this sort of incident.”

He added: “The house was pretty much full of gas.”

Mr Critchlow said the explosion could have been caused by an electrical switch, such as a light switch or kettle, igniting the leaking gas.

Mr Wilmott’s body was found beneath rubble at the back of the house.

He died as a result of multiple fractures of the skull and injuries to the brain consistent with having been sustained in a domestic explosion.

The two-day inquest heard that the copper pipe in Mr Wilmott’s house ran through two concrete slabs, subjecting it to tension for the entirety of its life as the slabs moved independently of each other. It corroded and fractured at the point the slabs met in a doorway.

The jury was told that the corrosion could have been caused by a number of factors, including moisture, ammonia-based chemicals, or formic acid produced by an ants’ nest found nearby.

Mr Critchlow, who investigated the explosion for the Health and Safety Executive, said: “This was a natural gas incident, a very unfortunate one, one that probably could not have been foreseen, and caused by failure of the pipe, due partially to corrosion but partially, and more so, to movement of the floor in which it was buried.”

The jury returned a conclusion of accidental death.