Three people were transported via ambulance with “serious, but not life-threatening” burn injuries early Tuesday morning suffered from an incident with a propane heater outside of Silgan Containers at 400 N. 15th St. in Rochelle, Rochelle Fire Department Chief Dave Sawlsville said.
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ROCHELLE — Three people were transported via ambulance with “serious, but not life-threatening” burn injuries early Tuesday morning suffered from an incident with a propane heater outside of Silgan Containers at 400 N. 15th St. in Rochelle, Rochelle Fire Department Chief Dave Sawlsville said.
At 3:52 a.m., RFD was dispatched to Silgan Containers for the report of a small explosion, no fire and two injuries. After arriving on scene, RFD personnel found there had been a total of four injuries. One patient suffered minor burns to their hands and opted not to be transported.
“They have an enclosure out in their parking lot for their employees to go and smoke,” Sawlsville said. “They had a propane heater in there that was apparently leaking propane. This morning some employees went out there to smoke and there was a flash due to propane igniting. We transported three people from there in ambulances. All three have since been sent to burn centers.”
Sawlsville said that after being transported to Rochelle Community Hospital, the three burn victims were transported to OSF St. Anthony Medical Center in Rockford to treat their burns. That hospital has a burn unit, the RFD chief said.
“Any time there's a burn on the hands or face, you want to refer them to a burn center,” Sawlsville said. “The hands are a quality of life issue and the face is an airway. There was no damage to the structure they were in. It didn't even burn the tarps the structure was wrapped in. When the flash happened, some of the employees' clothes were set on fire.”
Sawlsville said the propane heater was fueled by a small 20-pound propane tank, the size used in a common gas grill. Due to multiple injuries taking place, the state fire marshal was called to investigate the incident. Their findings have not been released yet, Sawlsville said.
“Preliminarily, they had a propane heater in there and maybe that heater was leaking propane,” Sawlsville said. “So when they went out there and lit their cigarette, that could have caused the incident. The report is they were sitting there smoking and just on their phone and all of a sudden the flash happened. We're unsure of what caused the problem. It could have been a faulty cylinder or was hooked up wrong. Injuries were serious, but not life-threatening. Everyone is going to survive.”
