Islander’s hotel-room windows blown in by Paris bakery blast

Islander’s hotel-room windows blown in by Paris bakery blast

Vet Henry Johnson (24), a former Victoria College student, was in the city for a short break with his girlfriend, Lianna McKirdy, when the incident occurred.

Explaining what happened, he said: ‘I was just about awake but my girlfriend was still asleep when there was a big low boom and the windows all blew in along with the curtains.

‘It was as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to them.

‘It fractured the plastic frame that the windows were in but they did not smash. It was quite thick double glazing.

‘Luckily we were on the other side of the hotel to where the explosion was, but the windows facing the road where the explosion was were all smashed and the front of the hotel was pretty messed up.’

Dr Johnson said he first thought the explosion may have been terror-related but, after looking online, soon found out that it had been caused by a gas leak in a bakery around 20 metres from their hotel.

‘Being in the middle of Paris, at first I thought it was a bomb but I looked it up on Google and found that there had been a gas explosion in the bakery which we had been having breakfast in for the last couple of days,’ he said.

‘We were not really aware of what was going on at that point so we just stayed in the room and waited it out.

‘Later on, the receptionist came upstairs and told us that they were evacuating and we all had to leave by a back entrance onto the street behind where the explosion took place. When we got outside all the windows were smashed up and we were ushered away by police.’

Dr Johnson added that the roads around the back of the hotel were covered in glass and filled with smoke and there were a large number of reporters, firefighters and police officers at the edge of the scene.

The Beaumont resident said that while reading media reports about the incident, he then found out that large protests were planned across the city, as part of the nationwide Gilets Jaunes movement.

Still in shock from being involved in the explosion and keen to avoid the demonstrations, the couple instead chose to spend the rest of their weekend in Versailles – just outside Paris.

An investigation into the incident is now under way but authorities are confident that the explosion was accidental.

Nine people remain in hospital in a critical condition.

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