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12-year-old Seriously Injured In Laundry Room Blast

November 15, 2005

A 12-year-old girl was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries after a clothes dryer in a Lauderdale Lakes apartment laundry room exploded.

Her injuries are not life-threatening, according to fire-rescue officials, who took her to Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale. Fire officials would not identify the girl, but her neighbors in the Royal Palm Apartments said her name is Myra Vasquez. She was treated and released from Broward General on Friday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The girl was washing clothes about 12:35 p.m. when the dryer exploded, Capt. David Erdman of the Broward Sheriff's Office Department of Fire-Rescue said. Neighbor Raul Hernandez, 26, said the girl ran out of the laundry room with injuries to her face. The blast echoed through the pink apartment complex. It popped open some first-floor doors across from the laundry room and cracked windows in an adjacent hallway. Witnesses also said they smelled natural gas after the explosion.

About 30 fire-rescue workers and a hazardous materials team raced to the scene Friday. They evacuated 20 people from the two-story apartment building at 3001 NW 35th Ave., then worked to determine how the explosion happened. A natural gas leak may have caused the blast or it could have resulted from a problem with the dryer, Erdman said.

Bill Friedman of Commercial Laundry Inc. had repaired the dryer on Friday morning. ''I can tell by looking at the dryer that there is nothing wrong with it,'' he said Friday afternoon after the blast. Friedman said he thought a painter working in the laundry room may have pulled the machine from its gas line.

Raul Hernandez was lying on the couch in his apartment just across the hall from the laundry room when he was shaken by the explosion. ''It was a loud boom and the whole apartment shook,'' he said, pointing to artwork hanging crookedly on the wall. At the time, Hernandez was baby-sitting for his two children and his friend's three children. He said he grabbed the kids and ran out the rear door of his first-floor, two bedroom apartment. ''I saw the laundry room door was lying on the floor. It had come off its hinges,'' he said. The door to Hernandez's apartment blew open from the explosion.