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'MIRACLE OF GOD'
A FAMILY were "miraculously" spared from death after a moment's delay saw them narrowly miss a devastating gas blast.
Nadine Foster, 34, and her young children are alive "only by pure luck" after the house next to their property in Kingstanding, Birmingham exploded last night.
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Doreen Rees-Bibb died and her partner David Murphy remains in a "life-threatening" condition after the house was left in ruins.
Nadine said usually her children Kenayah, eight, and Ja'nae, six, would have been getting ready for bed when the three-bed terrace exploded.
However, they were running slightly late because Kenayah wouldn't put on her shoes after a visit to her grandmother's house.
"It's just pure luck that we are alive," she said.
Read more on the explosion
"Any other night the children would have been in bed. It was only because my mum invited us over that we weren't there.
"I was telling Kenayah to put her shoes on because she'd got school in the morning but she wasn't listening.
"If she had put her shoes on quicker we would have been putting the key in the front door when next door went up. We would have been gone.
"It was only because she was taking so long to put her shoes on."
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The upstairs of Nadine's terraced home was obliterated in the gas blast. Only the charred remains of the roof structure remain.
"It doesn't bear thinking about. We would have been blown up," she said.
"It's awful to lose our home but at least we have our lives.
"We only have the shoes we are wearing but possessions do not matter. We've got nowhere to go but we're okay. That's the main thing."
The family were last night housed in a hotel and given £2,000 from the council to buy supplies. Experts have warned their home is too dangerous to enter.
Nadine's mum Helen Copeland, 59, said: "If they weren't with me, they would be dead. The children would have been in bed normally.
"I'm just so glad I asked them to come over. You can replace a home, but you cannot replace a life.
HORROR BLAST
"It is a miracle from God."
The destroyed home in Dulwich Road had recently sold for £160,000 by Paul Carr Estate Agents.
On the firm’s website, the property's particulars states: "Boiler requires repair / replacement."
A neighbour alleged the price had recently been slashed because of substantial maintenance needed in the house.
The fire service says the cause is believed to be a gas explosion.
Locals rushed to help after horror unfolded in the residential street.
Hero Callum Attwood pulled Mr Murphy from underneath the collapsed second floor.
He told The Sun: "I’m just glad we got the one man out. He said his partner was still inside.
If she had put her shoes on quicker we'd have been putting the key in the front door when it went up
"We tried to get to her but the flames and heat was too much and the fire service had started to do their job."
Another hero, 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, we could hear the guy screaming, but he was trapped up against the fridge in the kitchen.
"His clothes had been blown off, you couldn't even see him, he was covered in blood.
"We managed to get to him, and pull him out - I still have his blood on my jeans.
"He was going 'don't pull me - my legs' and I said 'mate, we're going to have to take you out now'.
"The dust from the loft insulation was burning around us.
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"We got him out, he ended up coming out on a mattress.
"But he was saying there was a woman in the house."
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