A BLAST IN THE DARK, A FAMILY
TORN APART
Author(s): Jack Healy, Globe
Correspondent Date: July 26, 2002 Page: B2 Section: Metro/Region
MILFORD - Iris and Violet Carey loved to sing for
their parents, but the last sound Heath Carey heard from 4-year-old Iris was her
raspy breath faltering as she died.
Heath Carey and his wife, Tara, could not see
the girls in the pitch-black wreckage of their home at 1:40 a.m. Wednesday,
after an explosion ripped through their Hopkinton apartment. Heath and Tara
would not see their girls again until that evening, when they drove to a funeral
home to wish Iris and Violet goodnight. "We just told them how sorry we
are, and how much we love them, and how much they're going to be missed,"
Tara said yesterday on the back porch of her mother's Milford home. "We
asked them to watch over us."
Yesterday, as the Carey family struggled to
cope with the girls' deaths, fire investigators began the long process of
determining whether a natural gas leak caused the blast, which reduced the
yellow, three-story house to a crumpled mound of cracked boards and insulation.
No one else was seriously injured.
It could be weeks or months before
investigators pinpoint the cause or flashpoint of the blast, said Jennifer Mieth,
a spokeswoman for the state fire marshal. Investigators are examining all the
usual sources of fire or explosion, from appliances and the gas heater, to the
two old oil tanks tht once heated the house, she said.
"It's going to be awhile," Mieth
said. "Now that they've collected the evidence, they need to sort through
it. Those things take time."
The Careys and their families visited
cemeteries and made funeral plans yesterday. They slept for the first time since
the explosion tore them from sleep and ripped apart their world. Between visits
with family and the undertaker, they relived memories of the blast.
Wednesday began "just like normal,"
Heath said. Violet, 5, spent the day at the home of her best friend, Morgan.
Iris accompanied her parents to their Milford clothing store, Freaks and
Frolics, which manufactures outfits for clubs and underground parties.
Iris and Violet loved to work alongside their
parents, Tara and Heath said. They would play with their toy sewing machines -
Christmas gifts - or pile up scraps of fabric while Tara and Heath sewed and
filled orders.
"We would give them things to do so they
could think they were helping," Heath said.
At 7 p.m., Violet was dropped off at 65 Main
St., where they had lived for three years in the four-family house. They ate
dinner together, flipped through a Kids `R Us back-to-school catalog, and
watched television before Tara bathed the girls and put them to bed at about
8:30 p.m.
Iris climbed into bed wearing her favorite
bathing suit instead of pajamas, and Tara lay down with the two girls and lulled
them to sleep. She often read to them, but they were too tired that night and
fell asleep quickly.
"I was holding Iris on my left and Violet
on my right," Tara said. "I kissed both of them and said, `I love
you.' "
Tara and Heath watched television in the living
room until about 11 p.m. They said they didn't notice any strange smells or
noises as they snuggled close to their daughters asleep on a futon beside their
bed and shut off the overhead light.
Two hours later, an explosion caused Tara to
think the world was ending.
"All I could see are orange and blue
flames. Everything just started falling down. We fell straight down. We were so
crushed we couldn't move."
"I saw the flames," said Heath,
"and I could feel them coming. After a certain point, I couldn't feel them
anymore. I reached up, and I could feel that my eyebrow had been singed
off."
Heath found himself sitting up with Tara's legs
pressed against his own. Pulverized wood and plaster dust coated their skin and
hair. The smell of smoke would cling to them for 12 hours after the explosion.
Firefighters yelled, "Is anybody in
there?"
Heath reached in front of him and felt what he
believed to be one of the girl's legs. He cooed, "Oh, my baby. Oh, my
baby" over and over again to calm the girls, even as Iris's breath ran out.
Then, he began to fight his way out of the
rubble.
"I was getting so claustrophobic," he
said. "I was pulling boards and plaster. I was trying to pull everything
from everywhere."
He freed his legs, wiggled into a passageway
leading to the street, and dragged Tara out by her feet. Heath said he already
knew he couldn't reach either of his girls, but he hoped desperately that
firefighters could.
But it was already too late.
When they arrived at Milford-Whitinsville
Regional Hospital, the couple was told that both Iris and Violet were dead. They
sank into hospital chairs and stared.
The couple's only solace, as they sat wearing
borrowed clothes yesterday at Tara's mother's home, were their last words with
the girls.
"I know they both said, `I love you' to
me," Tara said. "I kissed them both."
A service for Iris and Violet will be held from
2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Buma-Sargeant Funeral Home in Milford. A funeral Mass
for the girls will be said at 10 a.m. Monday in St. Mary's Church in Milford.
The family has set up a memorial fund in their
daughters' names. Donations can be sent to the Violet and Iris Carey Memorial
Fund, care of Fleet Bank, 209 E. Main St., Milford, 01757.
|
