DETROIT – Holding her bandaged hands, Nancy Bruce described the moment Tuesday morning when the walls of National Fleet Services on Detroit's east side exploded around her.
"I couldn't get my breath. It wasn't smoke. It was, I'm 65, and I just couldn't get my breath. Trauma, I guess. I'm holding my chest," Bruce told Local 4.
Bruce has worked at the business for 13 years. She said the day started out like any other, except for one thing.
"I was walking through the building and I smelled the propane, the distinct smell. I could hear this hissing sound, and I could smell the propane. I walked all the way through the building, past the fellas," she said.
She went to a downstairs break room to try to escape the smell.
"For some reason, I decided to leave that room. I opened up the door and there was this blast like a sonic boom. I keep thinking, to me, it had, like, a metallic sound, like a ‘ting' or something," Bruce said. "My first thought was, ‘I don't want to die here. I don't want to die, period, but I don't want to die here.' Then I got up and walked to the side street, I think it is Grace (Avenue), and sat down on the curb."
Bruce said she waved her arms for help, but no one who was driving by stopped.
"I got up, walked back to Grinnell (Avenue), looked down toward the building just billowing smoke. I turned the other way and there were people that came out of that next building … they got a chair for me," she said.
Bruce's eyebrows are singed, and she has what she called "pinprick" burns around her face. She also has second-degree burns on her palms and fingers.
Slideshow: Scene of explosion on Grinnell Street in Detroit