Ohio Construction Workers Save Man After Blast

May 12, 2014
They heard moaning and saw a hand sticking out of the rubble.

May 12--Brandon Dotson said he was just being nosy after a loud boom shook the ground, pulling him away from his landscaping and construction work yesterday on the Near East Side.

His curiosity turned out to be another man's good luck.

The boom about 2:15 p.m. was an explosion that leveled a nearby house at 555 Lilley Ave., south of E. Mound Street. When Dotson came upon the rubble, he heard moaning and saw a hand sticking out from what was left of an awning.

"Me and a few other guys struggled to get the porch off him," Dotson said. "It was frightening.

"People were yelling 'Stay back,' but I just couldn't sit there and let another human go."

Dotson, 30, said others told him the man had been walking by when the house exploded. Fire officials said the man was taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center with injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening. They did not disclose his name.

Neighbors told firefighters the house had been vacant, Battalion Chief Tracy Smith said. An adjacent home was damaged from the resulting fire, and one firefighter suffered minor burns and also was taken to Grant, she said.

The cause of the blast was not known yesterday and is under investigation, Smith said.

Dotson, a South Side resident, said he was shaken up.

"I've never seen a real human begging for help, and me being right there in that situation to help," he said, shrugging off any notion that he's a hero.

"I was just at the right place at the right time to really help somebody."

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@JoAnneViviano

Copyright 2014 - The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

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