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Man severely burned after propane tank explodes in Tooele garage

Posted at 6:55 PM, May 23, 2019
and last updated 2019-05-24 08:45:08-04

TOOELE, Utah — Tooele City Fire and Police are investigating a propane tank explosion that left a man with severe burns across his upper body Thursday night.

Police said they found the man outside on the grass near the garage and he was transported by medical helicopter to the University of Utah burn center where he remains in unknown condition.

According to police, the explosion happened near 1000 West and 880 South just after 5:30 p.m. and overall there was minimal damage to the garage.

"Without question, whenever we have an explosion like this in the middle of a residential area, we would classify that as peculiar at the very least and it does take some time to determine what the actual cause is in an event like this," said Tooele Fire Capt. Bucky Whitehouse.

Investigators from Tooele Fire, Unified Bomb Squad and Dominion Energy were called to the scene and came to a conclusion about 90 minutes later after trying to piece together what happened.