ST. GEORGE – Emergency responders were dispatched to the Lexington Hotel this morning on reports of an explosion in the kitchen.
When officers arrived on scene there was no fire. There had been an explosion from a gas leak, St. George Police Sgt. Sam Despain said.
“When we got on scene there was no active fire,” Despain said, “We understand there was an explosion – there was one female worker in the kitchen whose injuries were minor but she was not transported to the hospital.”
St. George Fire Capt. Jason Whipple confirmed the injury to the female and to one other, and said that he thought the female was transported for treatment of minor injuries.
The kitchen staff was “cooking breakfast in the kitchen, just doing normal things,” Whipple said, “they had a maintenance guy in there working on some things –not sure exactly what he did or what happened in the restaurant or in the kitchen – there was a gas explosion that came from inside the wall. There’s a wall between the appliances in the kitchen and the gas explosion came from inside of there and it blew the wall apart and really jumbled up the kitchen.”
No evacuations were required and the hotel was able to resume serving breakfast in short order.
Whipple said the Fire Department was able to secure the gas and get things secured pretty quickly, that there was no danger to the occupants of the rooms, “just to the kitchen workers who are very lucky to have gotten out of there alive,” Whipple said, ” but there were no leaks into the buildings.”
Questar Gas is at the property with St. George Fire Department investigating the series of events that occurred to determine the source of the gas leak and the ignition.
Breakfast resumed to hotel guests in due course.
St. George News assistant editor Mori Kessler and photographer Dave Amodt on scene contributed to this report.
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