A woman pulled alive from the wreckage of a Pennsylvania chocolate factory after an explosion killed seven co-workers says flames engulfed the building and her arm as the floor gave way beneath her.
That could have been the end, if he hadn’t fallen into a vat of liquid chocolate.
The dark liquid extinguished her burning arm, but Patricia Borges ended up breaking her collarbone and both heels.
He spent the next nine hours screaming for help and waiting for help as firefighters battled all hell and helicopters swooped above him at the RM Palmer Co plant.
“When I started burning, I thought it was the end of me,” Borges, 50, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview from his hospital bed in West Reading, Pennsylvania, just a few minutes from the chocolate factory where the machine operator worked. National Transportation Safety Board investigators interviewed Borges on Friday, according to his family.
via the Associated Press
The March 24 explosion at RM Palmer killed seven Borges associates and injured 10. Federal, state and local investigations are ongoing. The cause has not been determined, but the Federal Transportation Safety Agency called it a natural gas explosion.
Borges said she and others complained of a gas smell about 30 minutes before the plant exploded. She is upset that Palmer is not evicted immediately. She said the deaths of her colleagues, including her close friend Judith Lopez-Moran, could have been prevented.
Other workers also reported smelling natural gas, according to their relatives. Palmer, a 75-year-old family business with deep roots in the city 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia, did not respond to questions about the workers’ claims.
Speaking in Spanish via video conference, his eyes bruised and his right arm burned and tightly bandaged, Borges recounted his terrifying brush with death.
The factory was preparing for a product changeover that day, so instead of handling a candy wrapper as usual, he helped clean up.
via the Associated Press
At 4:30 p.m., Borges told the AP, he smelled natural gas. It was strong and made her feel nauseous. Borges and his colleagues turned to their supervisor, asking “what will happen if we get evicted,” he recalled.
Borges said the supervisor noted that someone higher up should make that decision. So he went back to work.
Shortly before 5 p.m., the two-story brick building exploded.
Borges, who had climbed a ladder, was thrown to the ground. He heard screams. There was fire everywhere and the flames engulfed her quickly. “I asked God why he was giving me such a horrible death,” she said. “I asked him to save me because I don’t want to die in the fire.”
He started running. Then the floor gave way and she felt herself falling into a long horizontal chocolate tank in the basement of the factory. At 4 feet 10 inches tall, Borges landed vertically in chest-deep liquid.
The chocolate put out the flames, but she believes her fall broke her legs.
The tank began to fill with water from the fire hoses, eventually forcing Borges down when it reached neck level. He sat on the edge of the tub, then jumped into a pool of water that had formed in the basement. Briefly submerged, Borges said she had a glass of water before surfacing. It got tangled up in some plastic pipes.
via the Associated Press
“Help, help, please help!” she cried, over and over, for hours. Nobody came.
The pain became more intense. The water was cold. The main supply line to the building’s fire extinguishing system had broken and water was flowing into the basement. He lost track of time, but thought he might be there for a few days.
“All I wanted was to get out of there,” she said.
Finally, in the middle of the night, he saw a light and cried out for help again.
Search and rescue dogs alerted their handlers that a survivor might be in the wreckage. Now, as the rescuers cautiously descended into the basement, they heard Borges’ cries.
Calling for silence, the rescuers followed the sound of his voice. They found her in a confined space in chest-deep water. She approached them and was placed on a litter.
via the Associated Press
“She was severely hypothermic and battered,” conscious but “absolutely confused,” said Ken Pagurek, who helped lead the relief effort as program manager for Pennsylvania Task Force 1, an emergency response team that operates in disaster sites across the country. .
“I think if they hadn’t gotten to him when they did, there’s a very good chance the death toll would have been one more,” said Pagurek, also a captain with the Philadelphia Fire Department.
His rescue gave hope to first responders who had already pulled two bodies from the rubble in the hours following the explosion. The rescuers spent two more days in the pile. They found five more bodies, but no survivors.
Borges now faces surgery on both legs and a long recovery. Her family has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help pay the bills.
Borges, who arrived in the United States 31 years ago from the south-central Mexican state of Puebla, worked at Palmer for four years.
He said he was looking for accountability.
“I wanted to speak out so this can be prevented in the future,” she said. “For my colleague Judy, I want there to be justice.”
Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania and Coronado reported from Austin, Texas.
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