One dead, at least 12 hurt after explosion at Coryell Memorial Hospital

[Elderberry]

kcentv 6/26/2018

GATESVILLE, Texas - One person is dead and 12 people were injured after an explosion at Coryell Memorial Hospital Tuesday afternoon.

Officials said the explosion happened after 2 p.m. an the victims were construction workers.

The injured workers were transported to area hospitals, including Baylor Scott and White Hospital in Temple and Hillcrest in Waco.

A Baylor Scott and White spokesperson said Temple received nine patients with injuries and they anticipate the majority of the patients will be transferred to facilities in Austin and San Antonio for further treatment. Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Hillcrest received four patients, the spokesperson said. Several burn victims were also sent to Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

Officials believe the explosion is an accident and that no foul play is suspected.

The office of emergency management also confirmed there was a partial building collapse.

More: https://www.kcentv.com/article/news/local/one-dead-at-least-12-hurt-after-explosion-at-coryell-memorial-hospital/500-567797697

[Victoria33]

This area is more in the middle/slightly eastern part of Texas.  That means it is not in south Texas closer to the border.  We don't need another problem in south Texas right now.  I read they suspect a gas leak and that would cause the big explosion and bring the building partially/completely down.

[thackney]

http://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Explosion-reported-behind-Gatesville-hospital-486604311.html

...Initial reports indicated the explosion occurred in a building under construction behind the existing facility that will house a boiler and chillers.

One witness said a generator exploded and officials said a natural gas line may have been involved.

Cellphone video showed a cloud of black smoke rising from the grounds of the hospital after the explosion as the first fire crews arrived....

[GrouchoTex]

"Officials believe the explosion is an accident and that no foul play is suspected."

Pretty much the way I'm seeing it, from what I've heard.

[Elderberry]

This area is more in the middle/slightly eastern part of Texas.  That means it is not in south Texas closer to the border.  We don't need another problem in south Texas right now.  I read they suspect a gas leak and that would cause the big explosion and bring the building partially/completely down.

Growing up, everyone knew about Gatesville.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatesville_State_School

The Texas Legislature established the House of Correction and Reformatory, the first rehabilitative juvenile correctional facility in the Southern United States, in 1887. The facility, operated by the Texas Prison System, opened in January 1889 with 68 boys who had previously been located in correctional facilities with adult felons.[2] The Victorian reformers who opened the facility intended for the farmwork in the dry climate and the schooling to reform juvenile delinquents.[3] At the beginning the institution also housed boys who did not commit any crimes but had no family and no other place to live in.[1] Children were previously housed in the Huntsville Unit, a prison which also housed adults, in Huntsville.[4]

Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire, said that the institution gained "a reputation for ruthlessness" as decades passed.[3] Gatesville, which served as the main juvenile detention facility for Texas since its opening, had a focus on labor instead of rehabilitation. Throughout the state school's history the state government did not appropriate sufficient funds, and the dormitories became overcrowded. Before the state school first opened, the reformatory officials complained about an influx of non-White children who they believed were not capable of being rehabilitated.[5] Michael Jewell, a former Gatesville state school student who attended the school in 1961, said that long periods in solitary confinement, stoop labor, fights between gangs, beatings perpetrated by staff members, and sexual assault occurred at the facility.[3] Perkinson said that Gatesville, intended to resemble the Elmira Correctional Facility in Elmira, New York, instead had an attitude similar to that of the Texas prison farms for adults.[5]

In 1909 the legislature changed the facility's name to the State Institution for the Training of Juveniles and placed it under the control of a five member board of trustees. In 1913 a law that was passed renamed the facility to the State Juvenile Training School.[2]

[Elderberry]

Death toll rises to 3 in Gatesville hospital blast as debris agreement reached

https://www.wacotrib.com/news/courts_and_trials/agreement-reached-over-hospital-blast-site-third-death-reported/article_d0f89847-4629-597d-896b-ba03d5c8153d.html

A third person has died as a result of the June 26 explosion at Coryell Memorial Hospital in Gatesville, his family's attorney said Monday after a Waco district judge approved an agreement to preserve the site of the construction-related blast to allow further investigation of its cause.

Wilber Dimas, 30, an electrician who was severely burned in the blast, died Sunday at Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin, said the attorney, Jim Dunnam of Waco.

Judge Vicki Menard of the 414th State District Court on Monday approved an agreement that Dimas' family had sought that prohibits destroying, altering, repairing or removing of debris at the blast site at Coryell Memorial Hospital on June 26. The hospital and contractors involved in the ongoing construction project there agreed to the measure.

The family, represented by Dunnam and Houston attorney Robert E. Ammons, won a temporary restraining order filed earlier this month to preserve the site.

Michael Bruggman, 44, of Rogers, a Lochridge Priest Inc. employee, died at the job site on the day of the explosion, and Filiberto Morales, 36, of Round Rock, a member of Network Controls team, died two days later.

Dunnam said he was satisfied with the agreement and hopes it will bring answers for victims.

Days after the explosion, officials confirmed the explosion happened in a boiler room, but the official cause of the explosion remains unclear. Dunnam said the goal of the temporary restraining order was to preserve the evidence, so all parties can better understand what happened.

More at link above.