A Center Grove area couple didn’t think anything of mixing two brands of the same chemical to treat the water in their pool.
The result: an explosion that damaged their home and sent both of them to the hospital.
Now both the couple and emergency workers want to warn residents to be extra cautious with the chemicals used to treat and maintain backyard swimming pools.
Just before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, the couple was preparing chemicals to treat the pool in the kitchen of their Golden Grove Estates home. They had a small amount of one brand left and more supplies in another brand and decided to mix the two because they thought both were the same. When they mixed in water, as a pool maintenance worker had suggested in the past, the mixture exploded, Bargersville Fire Chief Jason Ramey said.
The power of that blast blew their kitchen sink out of the countertop and into the cabinet below and busted out the window above the sink in the home off Saddle Club Road, Ramey said.
They called 911, and both the husband and wife were taken to Community South Hospital to be treated for inhalation of chemicals and chemical burns and damaged hearing from the blast, he said. By Wednesday morning, both had been treated and released from the hospital, he said.
Ramey called the explosion a freak accident.
The couple thought they were mixing the exact same chemicals, but there must have been even a slight difference between the two brands that led to the reaction and explosion, Ramey said.
Emergency workers were even surprised by what had happened, and they and the homeowners wanted to get the word out to other residents, Ramey said.
“If they’re not exactly the same, I would caution people not to mix them,” Ramey said.
The damage to the home from the force of the explosion was incredible, and the couple is fortunate the damage wasn’t worse and that their injuries weren’t more severe, he said.
Emergency workers took the couple to the hospital Tuesday night, aired out the home and then closed it up, he said.
