Bouncing Back Couple Weren’t Expected To Survive Explosion And Burns, But Now They’re Home

‘Don, I’m on fire,” Irma Wilson cried out to her husband on a Nashville, Tenn., street more than three months ago.

Her clothes were in flames. Her skin was charred. Her hair was scorched.

The street had exploded just inches in front of the vacationing Spokane couple. Flames and pavement shot two stories high. A painter working nearby was killed.

Hours later in separate hospitals, the Wilsons’ burned bodies lay unconscious. Doctors held out little hope that the two, both 64, would survive.

But they credit their faith with seeing them through.

Don and Irma Wilson returned to their Spokane home last Monday, 14 weeks later than they had planned but much sooner than doctors had anticipated.

Their bodies ravaged by the accident, the Wilsons still face a lengthy rehabilitation. But they say the tragedy has changed them forever and brought them a sense of joy at each new day.

“Neither of us was expected to live,” Don said from the couple’s North Side home on Friday. “We’re grateful.”

The Wilsons had just begun a 14-day tour of the Southeast on Oct. 10 and were walking along a downtown Nashville street when an underground transformer exploded.

Don remembers running to Irma and struggling to douse her burning clothes.

A man yelled to him, “Mister, you’re on fire.”

Don hadn’t even felt the heat of his own burning skin.

The Wilsons’ world went blank.

Don woke up 17 days later in Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Talking was painful. His hands were lifeless, burned and numb.

“It’s going to take a long time to get back to anywhere near where we used to be,” Don said.

The Wilsons used to be a couple forever on the go. Family pictures record ski trips, volunteer work and vacations.

The October trip was one of many they took with friends.

Don and Irma planned to spend just a few days in Nashville before meeting another Spokane couple for a tour of Memphis and the Carolinas.

The Grand Ole Opry drew them to the Music City. After a visit to the country music mecca the morning of Oct. 10, Don and Irma caught a trolley to downtown Nashville.

They took in sights around the Tennessee capitol building before heading for the bus stop.

Just past the NASCAR Cafe, where a construction crew was finishing work on the restaurant, an underground transformer was turned on.

“It exploded right in our faces,” Don remembers.

They dropped to the ground as a ball of fire shot through the pavement.

“I remember the paramedics cutting my clothes off of me,” Irma said Friday, wrapping herself in a blanket to ease a constant chill after suffering burns to more than 60 percent of her body.

“The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital two months later,” she said.

While a silent, nearly comatose Irma battled pneumonia and infections, Don and their three children struggled with her seeming lack of progress.

Their son, Carl, came from Seattle the day after the explosion and hasn’t left their side. He was joined often by his sister, Sherry Carter.

Randy Wilson split his time between keeping his parents’ Spokane insurance business running and visiting Nashville.

Don was released from the hospital Nov. 21. He was well enough to return home, but didn’t want to leave his wife.

Nashville residents rallied around the family, bringing dinner three times a week, sending cards, paying bills and offering legal counsel.

“We have a whole new family of friends in Nashville now,” Don said. “It’s changed our outlook on life.”

Irma was released from the hospital Jan. 16.

The Wilsons believe that community support in Nashville and Spokane, along with their faith in God, directed their remarkable recovery.

“It took everyone’s participation to get us through this,” Irma said. “It was so evident that God was in charge of our lives.

“He just moved mountains.”

Now that they are home, the couple is working to return order to their business, the Don Wilson Insurance Agency, and their personal lives.

But the fight to regain their health is the real hurdle.

The Wilsons will return to Nashville in July so Irma can have more surgery. Her legs are severely burned.

Don has not regained full use of his hands. Burned vocal chords leave his voice weak. He tires easily.

Rest and support seem to be their best medicine.

“We intend to get back to as normal as we can,” Don said. “It’s never going to be the same. We realize that.

“It’s just going to take time.”

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