Crime & Safety
UPDATE: Apartment Explosion That Injured Three is `Suspicious'
Injured suffer combination of second- and third- degree burns; airlifted to hospital.
Three people were critically burned Saturday after an explosion investigators are calling suspicious rocked an apartment on the 3600 block of Silver Oaks Way, said Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Battalion Chief Joe Testa.
Emergency crews were dispatched to the explosion at 5:16 p.m.
"When we arrived on scene all three patients were outside of the building with critical burn injuries," Testa said.
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In addition, emergency crews found a ground-floor apartment of a five-unit complex on fire. The blaze, which also spread to neighboring units, was extinguished in 20 minutes, Testa said.
Damage was estimated at $350,000.
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Dawn Fabyan lives in the apartment directly above the unit where the explosion occurred.
"I was just watching TV with my son and an explosion just went off," she said. "We weren't sure what happened. It was scary."
Fabyan and her son evacuated the apartment and saw the three injured people.
"The woman's clothes were torn... she was screaming... and her skin was just peeling off," said Tyler Brundage, Fabyan's son. "It was horrible. Just horrible."
Fabyan said a family of three live in the unit: a mother, her son and his girlfriend.
The mother was not home during the explosion, she said.
The injured were transported by ambulance to and were then airlifted by helicopters to hospitals.
A 25-year-old man and a 31-year-old man were taken to Valley Medical Center in San Jose, officials said. A 22-year-old woman was taken to UC Davis Medical Center.
No firefighters were injured at the scene.
The cause of the explosion was unknown as of Saturday night. The area has been closed off pending a joint investigation by the and Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department.
The case is being handled by the department's Criminal Investigations Bureau.
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