A Boston family is filing suit against National Grid, seeking $1.2 million dollars in damages after their home exploded in Dorchester last April.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of eight people, many of them children, who lived on the second and third floors of 27 Hansborough St.
After the explosion and subsequent fire on April 16, which injured several tenants, Boston Fire spokesperson Steve MacDonald said the cause was a natural gas leak, but who was at fault was still under investigation. Investigators also told NECN that National Grid was in the area working prior to the explosion.
The lawsuit alleges residents had both frequently smelled and reported gas leaks prior to the explosion, and that appropriate action wasn't taken. It also alleges National Grid was "grossly negligent," and failed to use even minimal care in locating and identifying the natural gas leak.
Bill Kennedy, an attorney for the family, says they lost everything, all their possessions and items of sentimental value from their eight years of living there, and that they still suffer emotional, physical and mental distress.
For tenant Carline Blaise, the reality is still tough, as she describes the harrowing search for two of her young sons inside, eventually finding them under a pile of rubble.
"Then one of them said, mommy I'm here. I tell them get out, but when I told them to get out, there was no place to go because there was fire in the window, fire in the door," Blaise said.
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Her husband Roudy Jemedy said he thought they weren't going to make it out as he rescued his wife's mother.
"I said we're going to die, we're going to die," he said.
In a statement, National Grid said it would not comment on the lawsuit, but added the company is "confident that our natural gas infrastructure was operating normally at the time of this incident."
The family says they still suffer from mental, physical and emotional distress, though. They also want National Grid to prevent something like this from happening again.
