Inquest to resume into death of woman in Kingstanding house explosion
Doreen Mace, 79, was killed in the explosion in June last year.
Last updated 16th Jan 2023
An inquest into the death of a woman in a house explosion in Kingstanding, Birmingham will resume today.
Doreen Mace, 79, was killed in the blast at a property in Dulwich Road on Sunday 26 June. A man was also seriously injured.
More than 20 people were evacuated from their homes whilst investigations were carried out.
The initial investigation suggested the likely cause was an “accidental and inadvertent ignition of a large escape of gas from a joint in the pipework”.
Four homes were later demolished as a safety precaution, following the explosion.
In the days after the explosion, heroic residents described how they clambered past flaming debris, through dust and rubble, shortly after the blast, and pulled an injured man alive from the ruins of the house.
One man, who declined to give his name, said: "Everyone was watching, the house was on fire, nobody was going in, so we could see a way in - so we went in the house, me and about a dozen others.
"There was a guy in the back (of the house), we could hear the guy screaming, but he was trapped up against the fridge in the kitchen. The dust from the loft insulation was burning around us. We managed to get to him and pull him out - I still have his blood on my jeans.
"We got him out, he ended up coming out on a mattress. But he was saying there was a woman in the house."
A number of candlelit vigils were held in the weeks following the explosion, as the community came to terms with what had happened.