Severely burned, David C. Hagan of Pownal was in stable condition Tuesday.
POWNAL – The boom seemed normal, like the tailgate rocking shut on her father-in-law’s dump truck.
Carmie Hagan felt something was wrong, though.
She checked on the children, who were fine. Then, she looked out a window. Her father-in-law, David C. Hagan, was on fire.
He was on the ground beside a Chevrolet Cavalier, its roof blown straight out. There were flames coming from the car and covering his clothes. Carmie ran to him, patting away the fire and gasping at the burns that covered his chest and arms. She walked him to the house and called for help.
That was at 2:30 p.m. on Monday. David Hagan was using a cutting torch on the Cavalier when its gas tank exploded.
An hour later, he was on his way to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The 59-year-old retiree is in stable condition, his daughter-in-law said Tuesday.
The fire covered between 50 and 75 percent of his body, leaving first-, second- and third-degree burns in its wake, Carmie Hagan said. Her husband, David K. Hagan, and others from the family spent Tuesday at his father’s bedside in Boston.
He’ll be in the hospital for two months or more, Carmie Hagan said. Skin will need to heal. There will be grafts and lots of pain.
But he’ll make it, she said. After the explosion, he managed to speak and walk despite the grievous burns.
“It’s not that he’s so tough,” she said. “He’s bull-headed.”
Carmie Hagan has barely begun thinking about what happened.
On Tuesday, the car behind her house sat encircled by police caution tape. Black marks dotted the ground where smaller fires had briefly burned.
The woman said she doesn’t remember those. When the accident occurred, she experienced a kind of tunnel vision.
Her father-in-law had been spending the last two weeks working on junk cars and hauling them away to the dump. Retired with a heart condition, he typically worked outside on the cars or other projects.
He is an experienced guy, not the type to make such a catastrophic mistake, Carmie Hagan said.
“He probably thought the gas was all gone,” she said.
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