Suicide attempt goes awry, levels house
Natural gas explosion hospitalizes homeowner
By Lisa Roberson,
[email protected]
Gazette Staff Writer
An apparent suicide attempt Monday morning sent one man to the hospital after he accidentally blew his house up.
Mark Morris, 39, of 643 Pickens Avenue, was taken to the Ohio State University Medical Center around 5:30 a.m. after a natural gas explosion leveled his home and caused heavy damage to neighboring homes.
However, Betsy Samuels, a hospital representative, said she could only confirm a man fitting Morris' description was admitted to the medical center's intensive care burn unit Monday. No details as far as condition or name were available.
The blast is being investigated by the Chillicothe Police Department as a suicide attempt. According to a report, Morris told officers he turned on the natural gas to his house in an effort to kill himself. He did become concerned, however, someone other than himself would be harmed if the house exploded. But as he went to the basement to turn off the electric circuit breaker, the house exploded.
Morris' single-story home was leveled to the foundation, said Assistant Chief Steve Barnes.
"It was something to see once we got there," Barnes said of the damage the blast inflicted on the neighborhood. "There was a large piece of it in the street, in the back yard, leaning against other houses and small pieces were scattered around the neighborhood."
However, Barnes said an evacuation was not needed.
"Most of the neighbors were already out front," Barnes said. "The tremendous explosion had got the attention of neighbors, and they got to safety."
Neighbor Thelma Hines said the explosion sounded like a bomb and caused her to put down her Bible and run to the door.
"When it boomed, my clock on the wall came down... it kind of shook this house," she said.
The impact partially buried Morris under a pile of the rubble, and the police report said fellow neighbor Russell P. Williamson pulled him to safety. Williamson said he was outside smoking a cigarette just prior to the blast.
It was then Hines heard the screams of Morris and saw neighbors running to the badly burned man, carrying wet towels and buckets of water.
"He was screaming, 'Help, help,' and his arms were so badly burned," the 78-year-old woman said. "I can't help but wonder how he is."
Hines said she doesn't want to believe reports the explosion may have been a suicide attempt. She knows her neighbor and his three children very well and can't believe he would end his life.
"As far as I know, he's a nice neighbor," she said, recalling the work he would do on her car and the times he would get her ice cream in the summer.
Nonetheless, Hines did say Morris confided in her last week he was recently admitted to the hospital for treatment of depression.
It came after Morris' first failed suicide attempt.
According to police reports, Morris also tried to kill himself Nov. 5 by carbon monoxide poisoning. He allegedly taped one end of a garden hose to his tailpipe and placed another in his passenger side window. However, after several hours the vehicle ran out of gas. He then tried to use a small propane tank, but that also ran out of gas.
Barnes said it is not often the fire department is called out to a house explosion of this magnitude. With the potential risk of a second explosion and a large gas leak, he does consider it a miracle no one else was hurt.
"We got lucky with this one," he said.
