Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)

After ‘big flash,’ recovery for burned Utah family

Following propane heater explosion, healing begins

- By DAPHNE CHEN

SALT LAKE CITY — The sky was just beginning to lighten outside the cargo trailer where the Mathis family was sleeping when Amie Mathis’ 7-yearold daughter woke up to go to the bathroom.

Mathis glanced at the clock. It was 6:18 a.m. The propane heater had gone out during the night. Her husband went to ignite it. That’s when the trailer erupted. “It was just a flash,” Mathis said. “A big flash. And then it came down upon us.”

With three kids screaming and the trailer locked from the inside, Mathis struggled to open the door as flames erupted around them.

Mathis said she still isn’t sure how her husband got the family out of the trailer. He suffered the worst burns, the Deseret News reported.

“We were trapped in there for a couple minutes,” said Mathis, who cried as she recalled the incident from the University of Utah Burn Center. “Heavenly Father was watching out for us.”

Four of the five are still recovering at the burn center from a range of first- to third-degree burns. And Mathis is still processing how a family hunting trip that had ended in triumph — their 13-year-old killed a deer the day before — turned nightmaris­h in a split second.

Once the family escaped from the burning trailer, Mathis said they tried to call for help but couldn’t get service. That’s when Mathis detached the trailer from the truck, and her husband drove the family 20 miles down the road toward Richfield.

Mathis and her husband hid the extent of their injuries from their children.

“I have to be strong for my kids,” she said. “My husband does the same. So we were just saying prayers and letting them know that even though we were in the worst state right then, that there is a higher power that will help take care of them.”

Emergency workers met the family at a rest stop on the highway and transporte­d three of them by helicopter and one of them by ambulance to the burn center, where her husband remains sedated, Mathis said.

Her 13-year-old and 7-year-old will go home first. She hopes to go home within a month. Mathis’ husband will stay the longest.

The Sevier County Sheriff’s Office said investigat­ors later found a coupling to the propane bottle hose had been leaking propane.

“I don’t think you can prevent something like that,” Mathis said. “So just don’t take your family for granted.”

 ?? NICK WAGNER/THE DESERET NEWS VIA AP ?? Amie Mathison sits bandaged Oct. 4 in her hospital bed at the University of Utah hospital’s burn center in Salt Lake City. Her husband and three children received firstdegre­e burns after a propane tank and heater inside the family camper exploded.
NICK WAGNER/THE DESERET NEWS VIA AP Amie Mathison sits bandaged Oct. 4 in her hospital bed at the University of Utah hospital’s burn center in Salt Lake City. Her husband and three children received firstdegre­e burns after a propane tank and heater inside the family camper exploded.

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