Landlord tells woman to leave her trailer home...gas leak. Woman lights cigarette on the way out. Darwinism ensues!!

[Louis Cypher]

(Update, Barry County, September 8, 2004, 7:52 p.m.) A mother, her one-year-old son and four-year-old daughter were critically injured after a mobile home in Barry County exploded.

It happened just before 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Merlino's Hidden Valley Estates on Barber Road just off M-43 north of Hastings.

The family had moved into the mobile home just three days ago.

Officials say the trailer park manager had a stove installed in the home, but it wasn't hooked up properly and was leaking gas. The manager told 24 Hour News 8 that he wanted the woman to stay out until it was fixed. The manager went to go shut the propane tank off, and that's when the woman lit a cigarette and the trailer exploded.

The fire burned so hot, so quick there was little anyone could do. But that didn't stop one teenage neighbor from trying.

Neighbors say they heard a pop, saw flames and heard a mother's agonizing cry for help. "'Get my baby, go get my baby,'...and I ran in there and got the one," Terry Miller, a neighbor, told 24 Hour News 8, describing how he rescued one of the children. Unable to locate the other child, 15-year-old Miller went back into the burning home. "She said it's in the crib, so I ran in there and got that one."

Minutes later, the home was reduced to a smoldering pile. "The trailer was probably 75 percent gone when we pulled onto the scene," said Hastings Fire Chief Roger Caris.

Miller says he did think about how he could get hurt while rescuing the children. When asked what made him keep going back into the burning structure, "The kids," he answered.

Neighbors identified the victims as 21-year-old Tasha Howard, her four-year-old daughter Rachel and one-year-old son Bradley. Tasha has second and third degree burns on 55 percent of her body, Bradley has second and third degree burns on 90 percent of his body, and Rachel has second and third degree burns on 40 percent of her body.

Tasha Howard's father contacted 24 Hour News 8 to say there are conflicting reports as to why his daughter and grandchildren were still in the home at the time of the explosion. 24 Hour News 8 asked Chief Caris about that topic. He says he won't close this case until he can talk to Tasha and get both sides of the story.

Tasha's father also says Tasha and her son are in very critical condition, while her daughter is doing better, sitting up and even talking a little bit.

Meantime, neighbors in the trailer park are dealing with the shock by doing what they can to help the Howards. Kids have put together collection cans raising money for the victims. But the help by one of those neighbors at the time of the fire may have saved two young lives.