Road to Recovery

    HARLAN -- It was a regular day. Bruce Heilesen was mowing his lawn when the unthinkable happened.
    The mower’s left rear tire intersected with a valve on a propane tank and turned it on. Heilesen thought he would park his lawn mower and shut the tank off.
    “Evidently, when I got back to the propane bottle I disrupted the airflow and a spark came off my lawn mower, which was still running, [and] ignited the propane,” Heilesen said.
    Heilesen remembers laying down and rolling on the ground. When that didn’t work, he remembers looking for a fire extinguisher with no relief. Next, he tried the garden hose, which he learned afterwards cannot put out a propane fire. At some point, someone pulled in the driveway and called the fire department.