Two children in hospital after car explodes
The Austin Fire Department responded to the call around 4:45 Sunday afternoon. Two kids and an adult were taken to the hospital with burns.
Dominquic Scott looked at his cousin's charred Chevy Impala on Monday morning -- a painful reminder of what happened in his Northeast Austin driveway Sunday night.
"It was a hard blow. My ears...they're still kind of ringing from the explosion," Scott said.
Scott says himself, along with a family friend who's a mechanic and his cousin's two kids, 10 years old and 14 years old, were helping clean out the gas tank.
"During the change of the fuel pump we just discovered that there was water in the tank instead of gas. And so that's why the car wasn't starting," Scott said.
That's when the car repairs took a nasty turn.
"I was leaning inside enough for my face to be over the gas tank and my other cousin was on the outside holding the pump when it exploded," he said.
Scott said it could have been worse.
"I thought I was dead for a little bit! I just saw pitch black for a good two minutes straight and I was kind of dazed, I didn't know what happened," he said.
Austin-Travis County EMS said the two pediatric patients were taken to Dell Children's Hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries. Scott was taken to UMC Brackenridge but released Sunday night.
"Kind of burnt the left side of my face. I got a blister on my forehead like a blister or two," Scott said.
Gabe Thompson with the Austin Fire Department reminds everyone gasoline is an unpredictable fuel.
"With gasoline, anytime it catches on fire, you don't know whats going to happen. It could be a big explosion or a smaller fire and the injuries could range from very minor to very severe," Thompson said.
He said it's best to get a mechanic to do the job.
"When you're doing any kind of work around gasoline be careful around those fumes because they're easy to ignite and if you are going to be working around that kind of environment, make sure you have a fire extinguisher available," Thompson said.
Scott wasn't sure how his cousins kids are doing today.