Ref. 289976PAUL Hebden escaped being blown up in his house because he wanted to get to work early.

Mr Hebden, 40, of Beechcroft Road, Upper Stratton, left home at 7.30am yesterday. Within an hour his house exploded after a gas leak, and was on the verge of collapse.

He said: "I would normally stay to make sandwiches. But I needed to leave earlier, so dashed out straightaway. To say I'm lucky to be alive is an understatement."

Still in shock, the sales consultant spent last night at his mother Rita's house in Lytchett Way.

He said: "It's such a relief no one was hurt. I left my house and everything was fine. The next time I see it my worldly possessions are hanging out of the window."

Mr Hebden was travelling back from Devizes when he first heard about the explosion from a work colleague, who called his mobile phone.

At this stage he did not know whether his house was affected.

He said: "I decided to pop by to see for myself. I went round the back and it didn't look too bad. Then I saw the front and nearly fainted. A firefighter gave me oxygen."

Mr Hebden had just a few moments to grab some clothes from inside.

He smelled gas in his bathroom the previous night and wondered whether it was connected to the building work next door.

But Mr Hebden decided to deal with it the next day and went to bed. The following morning he could still smell gas but did not want to be late for work.

He said: "Now I need to contact my insurers. This is going to take a few days to sink in."

Fire crews tackled a fire and searched the semi-detached house in case anybody was trapped inside.

Workmen were in the next-door house at the time of the explosion, working on a boiler. Senior firefighter Pete Townsend said the explosion may have been triggered when one of the workmen switched on an electric light. He said the building was in danger of tumbling down and even opening a door could trigger a collapse.

Firefighters stayed until mid afternoon after which Swindon Council contractors arrived to remove struct-urally unsound parts of the house. Homes on either side were evacuated in the morning.

Kas Bedry, 51, and his wife Kim, 40, were two of the evacuated residents. Mr Bedry said: "At first I thought a lorry had gone into a house."

Gillian Gilbert, 36, believes she and her five-year-old son Thomas narrowly escaped being seriously injured because they passed the house just seconds before the blast.

"I was walking Thomas to Beechcroft Infants School when I heard this almighty explosion," she said. "There was a delay, and another bang. If we had been any earlier we would have been in the firing line."

Beechcroft Road was closed between Dores Road and St Philips Road for most of the day.

Transco spokeswoman Caroline Davidson said an investigation has started and this kind of explosion is unusual. Transco engineers have turned off gas for the two affected homes.

Victoria Tagg

Bhavani Vadde