On the morning of Friday, Aug. 2, 1963, residents of the region woke up to the unimaginable in their local newspaper. The banner headline on the front page read: “EXPLOSION DEATH TOLL NOW 7, DISTRICT’S WORST IN 12 YEARS” announced an unspeakable tragedy which had occurred the previous day.
The disaster occurred where Highway 69 (now known as MR 80) turns east at a junction variously known at the time as "Ross's Corners" and “Gauthier's Corners." The Matte service station, a Shell outlet, was receiving a delivery of gasoline by tank truck when the unthinkable happened.
Witnesses said that there had been an explosion, like a bomb going off, that lifted the building and crumpled it in mid-air. This was followed shortly after by a fireball that engulfed what remained in a horrible curtain of flame and fog of smoke.
At the time, Percy Mcintyre told the newspaper that he was at the lunch counter just 10 minutes prior to the explosion.
"I was just finishing a cup of coffee when a travelling salesman came running back into the store and asked who was operating the tank truck that was filling the station's underground tanks," said Mcintyre. "The chap who was responsible for the truck put down a bottle of pop he was drinking and said he was. ‘Well, there's gasoline running all over the ground,' said the salesman. The lad ran out and stopped the gas flow, I went out seconds behind him and asked what he thought the loss was. He told me about 35 to 40 gallons.
"I noticed the gas was all over the road and was going down into the basement of the building," added McIntyre. "The salesman and myself left the station at the same time. Ten minutes later I heard it had blown up."
Alex Nepitt was making the turn at Ross's Corners on his way home to Capreol when the blast occurred.
“I looked left and right," he said, "and then right at the service station. Everything appeared quiet and normal. No one was outside. Two seconds later, I heard the most tremendous explosion. I thought it was a dynamite blast, but I was looking at the garage and saw it lift off its foundation, and crumple in the air. Then it blew out all around."
Witnesses recalled that immediately after the explosion the driver of the tank truck, Edward Thorpe, rushed to the vehicle, pulled the delivery pipe out of the opening that led to the station's underground tanks, and drove the truck away in order to prevent another serious explosion.
He ended up suffering burns in the calamity. Police and firemen praised his courage in going back to the gasoline truck after the blast as it had been partly covered by a collapsed wall. Luckily, the service station's underground tanks did not explode.
The blast was so powerful that it broke the upstairs windows of a nearby house, six large windows at the supermarket across the road, a window in the service station beside it, and several windows of a nearby hotel. It also rocked the shopping plaza to the east of Matte's station.
The manager of a bank branch in the plaza, E.L. Baillargeon, said he had looked at the clock and found the explosion took place at 4:17 p.m. "I first thought of the mines blast," he said, "but that usually goes off at 4:10."
Five minutes later, flames had swallowed the remnants of the building. Smoke could be seen billowing into the sky from from five kilometres away. It took the volunteer firemen from Hanmer, Capreol township and Blezard township 90 minutes to tame the blaze enough to begin the search for the victims.
In that five minute interval prior to the fire taking hold of the scene, six injured people either escaped or were rescued from the building by witnesses, including young Clement Gauthier, 17, who worked at the supermarket across the road.
Gauthier recounted at the time the horror of the scene.
“There was one girl (who) crawled out of the rubble all by herself, with her leg dangling like it was almost cut off. She fainted and they put her in one of the cars. We got another girl out. She was unconscious and pretty badly burned. And there was a man who came out alone. He was on fire. He was screaming pretty loud. We couldn't see hardly any fire at that time, though.”
As Gauthier pointed out, “It started a little later (and) once it started, we couldn't do anything about the others, so we ran to the phone and called for help."
Among the witnesses to the survivors staggering out of the rubble was Mrs. T. Theriault, who resided three blocks from the site.
“There was a lot of screaming and then Rene (Menard, who helped at the service station) came running toward me,” Mrs. Theriault recalled at the time. “His shirt was on fire and I asked him what happened. He cried back: ‘Gasoline all over the place’.”
The explosion, which was reportedly felt at least five kilometres away, was mistaken by many residents for the usual afternoon blast at Frood Mine. Said nearby resident Mrs. Rivers, "I thought it was the mine setting off dynamite until I heard the medicine chest in the bathroom crash on the floor.”
Mrs. Moyle Swinn, who lived right across the road from the scene was the first to notify the authorities. “As soon as I realized what was going on, I grabbed the phone and called the provincial police,” she related.
"I was mopping in the house when I heard the bang,” she recalled at the time. “But I figured I was hearing some loud blasts from Frood Mine. We usually hear them at that time of day, around 4 or 10 after 4.
"Then I looked through the window across the road and saw the whole thing go up. It came down, and I heard two more blasts and then the whole thing fell apart. In about 30 seconds, there was nothing left. And then I saw people running and then the fire started, so I rushed to the phone."
Two youngsters, Karin Werle and Helen Schumacher, were still shaking while recounting their experience to a reporter. “We were walking down the highway towards Hanmer,” Karin said, "and I guess we were about 200 yards from there when it happened. I figured it was an earthquake or something. It scared me a lot."
Her companion echoed her sentiment. “You were scared!" exclaimed Helen, “I was so scared I couldn't yell or move or anything. I figured maybe the houses would all come down."
As for the owner of the service station, Matte was not at the service station at the time; his wife and staff ran the lunch counter and service station. By coincidence, he had driven by about 10 minutes prior to the blast. He also worked for a Hanmer plumber and had just completed a call. “I was going to stop in for a pop," said Matte, but the fellow who was with me wanted to get right into Hanmer.
He learned of the tragedy when he observed smoke while returning home, 10 minutes after flames had engulfed the building. That's when he tried to rush inside. A doctor and a bystander saved Earle Matte's life.
The two, Dr. Ricardo Parraga and Stan Boivin, held him back from rushing into the blazing building where his wife and four-year-old daughter died.
“I tried to get in under the spray of the fire hose," Matte recounted the next day. "I made a mad dash for the kitchen, because I knew that's where they'd be. They probably saved my life."
Matte also revealed that his 10-year-old son, Brian, had been playing on the roof of a shed behind the Matte's living quarters at the service station at the time of the blast. The boy escaped injury because he was thrown behind the shed and sheltered by it from the force of the explosion. While the other two Matte children, Mary Ellen and Mickey, were at a nearby farm playing with ponies.
Harry Telenko summed up his brush with death in the service station explosion in one simple sentence.
"We were buried underneath the rubble of the garage and the car was on top of us." Telenko and his nine-year-old son, Richard, were inside the garage section of the building. Telenko's car had been on the main hoist at the time.
"All we heard was the bang," he recalled. "Then a large cloud of white smoke, and then the garage crashed down on us. It knocked the car from the main hoist, but I guess the jacks held it up. I was buried underneath the rubble.
"The next thing I heard was my boy calling for me, but I couldn't make out where he was. Finally, I made out his voice coming from a small opening in the rubble. I pulled some of it away and saw Richard underneath the car crawling out towards me. We just got out of the garage and it burst into flames. It was terrible.”
Telenko suffered an injury to his left hip along with cuts and abrasions to his face, hands, arms and legs. Richard received an injury to his knee and foot, as well as cuts and abrasions to his face and body. His left ear also required several stitches to close a wound.
Telenko said he estimated being buried under the rubble for about three to four minutes. “We are certainly fortunate. Others weren't so lucky,” he said of their ordeal.
Those who were declared dead immediately upon the extinction of the flames were: Delilah Matte, who was running the lunch bar at the time and her young daughter, Norma; Matte’s sister, Estelle Cloutier, and her young son, Vincent, who were visiting the Mattes at the time; and their mother, Alma D'Amour, who lived with the Mattes.
Another of the dead, Raymond Generoux, 15, was not a regular employee of the service station. It was reported that he had been only working there for two days, replacing his older brother, who was hurt in a horseback riding incident that week.
The six dead were taken to the Lougheed Funeral Home on Eyre Street. The injured were taken to St. Joseph's Hospital by both Metro and Lougheed ambulances, or by private car.
Dr. Ricardo Parrago said that death must have come almost instantly to the six victims. While the coroner, Dr. J. A. Pidutti, later declared, "It was the most horrible thing I have ever seen."
After the flames had subsided to a smouldering pile, firefighters became hampered in their search for survivors or victims by the sheer number of curious bystanders. Hundreds of cars reportedly lined the roadway and curious spectators could be found rummaging through the ruins.
They crowded within 15 feet of the ruins, despite the pleas of firemen and police, and cursed those who got in their way. It was reported at the time that one fireman had finally had enough and sprayed water from his hose toward the crowd. Most everyone fell back except one man, who stood his ground glowering. After the full force of the fire hose hit him in the chest, he fell down, and retreated.
Provincial police and inspectors from the fire marshal’s office investigating the blast believed that the spilled gasoline had flowed into the basement of the service station, activating the sump pump, and that an electrical spark from the motor may have ignited the blast.
Bud Hay, Shell Oil operations manager for the central division, made the following statement immediately after learning of the blast: “We haven't been able to find out anything. We don't know what their cooking facilities were there. We still have to find out several important clues." He followed this up with praise for the tank truck driver. “We are particularly grateful that our driver, Edward Thorpe, was able to remove his burning vehicle with its contents, an action which undoubtedly prevented more serious consequences.”
After the tragedy had occurred, a few regulars at the Matte’s and the lunch counter counted themselves lucky that life had thrown them a curveball that kept them away on that fateful day.
Yvette Jutras, 19, usually minded the Matte children in the living quarters behind the lunch counter, but just so happened to have been given the day off by Mrs. Matte.
“Thank God I wasn't there." she was heard sobbing after the tragedy.
While sobbing as well, 14-year old Camilla Bowie told of how she missed death or maiming in the explosion. “My mother made me go picking blueberries with them. I didn't want to go but I had to … We nearly always go there in the afternoon for a pop.” To which she added, “All those people in there, they're my friends!"
In this case, “We" includes her friend, Marian Salemink, who also missed the fatal trip to the lunch bar because she had to babysit for a neighbour. Camilla and Marian arrived horror-struck upon the scene while the inferno still raged where the service station and lunch bar had been. “Where did you two come from?" screamed a friend, who ran up to confirm that she wasn’t hallucinating. "You're supposed to be dead!"
Mrs. Allan Rivers, who lived 35 feet east of the destroyed service station, told of her daughter’s own split-second escape. “My daughter, Diane, was just into the restaurant seconds before the explosion," she said at the time, still shaking with relief. "She was trying to talk her girlfriend, Linda Duguay, into coming home with her. When Linda didn't want to come, Diane came home. She no sooner got in the door than the explosion happened." Duguay suffered head injuries, internal injuries and fractures, as well as burns, in the explosion.
The initial death toll of six was revised to seven when on the following day police found a seventh victim, Jo-Anne Marois, among the charred remains of the building. She had been a frequent customer at the lunch counter, and all evidence indicated that she was there at the time of the blast. In fact, the injured Linda Duguay, kept repeating one sentence after her rescue: "Jo- Anne is still in there."
Unfortunately, the death toll rose again, to eight, late on the same day, when Linda Duguay succumbed to her wounds at St. Joseph's Hospital. Her condition had remained critical throughout the day and she had seldom regained consciousness.
The number of lives claimed and victims injured in this explosion is the second highest in Sudbury area fatality records, topped solely by the Coniston train-bus crash of 1951 (where nine were killed and 30 injured).
Members of the Hanmer and Valley Kinsmen Club and other volunteer canvassers began calling door-to-door over the following week to collect $5,000 to aid the survivors of the explosion. A tentative deadline of three weeks was set to reach the $5,000 objective, although the campaign continued until the goal was met.
A five-person committee, which included Ed Levert, Murray Gray, Basil Scully, Dr. Ricardo Parraga and Jerry Dinard, administered the fund.
Funeral services for the victims were held on the Monday following the blast at St. Therese Church in Hanmer, (the church was filled to capacity and many of those attending had to stand outside) as well as St-Jean-de-Brebeuf Church in Sudbury (where at least 100 people attended the service and 20 cars joined the procession to the cemetery).
The dead:
- Delilah Matte, 23
- Norma Matte, 4.5 (her daughter)
- Mrs. Estelle Cloutier, 27
- Vincent Cloutier, 17 months (her son)
- Mrs. Alma D'Amour, 44 (mother of Mrs. Matte and Mrs. Cloutier)
- Raymond Genereux, 15
- Jo-Anne Marois. 15
- Linda Duguay, 14
The injured
- Giselle Labelle, 15
- Rene Menard, 14
- John Ross, 17
- Edward Thorpe, 27
- Harry Telenko, 33
- Ricky Telenko, 9
Today, 61 years after the accident, we take the time to mourn the loss of eight young lives. We also honour the actions of the rescuers who were on scene immediately, as well as the hardworking volunteer firefighters who put out the blaze and secured the scene. Thank you also to the family and friends (and strangers) of the deceased who rallied around four of their own families who were hurting and supported them in their time of need.
Jason Marcon is a writer and history enthusiast in Greater Sudbury. He runs the Coniston Historical Group and the Sudbury Then and Now Facebook page. Then & Now is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.