Family identifies mechanic who was seriously burned in explosion at Mansfield gas station

MANSFIELD, MASS. (WHDH) - The family of the 64-year-old man who was badly burned after a massive blaze broke out at a gas station in Mansfield Wednesday afternoon says he is a father of two, a husband and a lover of cars.

Crews responding to a report of an explosion at Cannan Fuels Gas & Auto Repair on Pratt Street before 1 p.m. found thick smoke billowing into the air and a raging fire that had engulfed a garage, according to the Mansfield Police Department.

Gas station workers say the head mechanic, Ronnie Stanovich, was welding a container inside a repair bay when it suddenly burst into flames.

“All of his clothes were all in flames so we were just ripping his clothes off,” fellow mechanic Christopher Merano told 7NEWS. “He got 85 percent of his body burned. It’s pretty bad.”

A stunned Shannon Adams says she called 911 as she watched workers scrambling to help Stanovich.

“The man was on fire from his boxers to his chest,” she said. “They got all of his clothes off of him. He rolled over to his hands and knees. He was crawling and he was just burnt everywhere.”

Mansfield Police Chief Ron Sellon says officers loaded Stanovich into the back of a cruiser before he was airlifted to the hospital.

He is now listed in stable condition but, according to his wife Deborah, he is suffering from second and third-degree burns over more than 85 percent of his body and nerve damage in his arm.

“He is a wonderful, loving, giving, caring, strong man,” she said. “I hope to God he survives. He’s my rock.”

Neighborhood residents say they heard a string of explosions as the fire torched the chemical-filled garage.

“I heard explosions, gas explosions, pretty loud,” Barry Topping said. “The flames were coming off the top of the building.”

Video from SKY7 HD showed firefighters from Mansfield, Norton, Easton, and Foxborough dousing the charred building with water from several angles.

“In any garage, you have a variety of things in there, including gasoline, the tires themselves will explode, you have acetylene, you have oxygen,” Mansfield Fire Chief Neal Boldrighini said.

At the repair shop Thursday, the owners were greeted with hugs, handshakes and food.

“He treats everybody really, really well,” one woman said. “Like we’re family to him so he is like family to us.”

The fire melted and burned cars in the shop, including Sydney Alexa’s Chrysler, which contained her uncle’s ashes.

“It was actually my uncle’s car so I kept his ashes in it,” she said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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