Walter Finch
A BRITISH tourist has described the terrifying moment a bar exploded around her while she was ‘buying a shirt from a market stall.’
Debbie Scholefield, 48, a former paramedic, was visiting her mother in the Mar Menor region when she was caught up in the tragedy on June 19 that claimed two lives and injured around 20 others.
“I was standing at the stall right next to where it went off,” the Huddersfield resident told the Olive Press.
“I thought someone had set off a bomb – glass and debris went whooshing past my head, then it hit me. I was thrown forwards, blasted clean off my feet.”
The explosion occurred in the Lo Pagan area while a weekly street market took place on Avenida Salvillo, with the two market stalls where Debbie was standing being hit hardest.
Debbie described how she got to her feet in a daze, the back of her legs lacerated, as two women stared at her before hurrying to sit her down.
After checking that her mother was unscathed, Debbie told the Olive Press how she set about trying to help the walking wounded with her paramedic training.
“There were a lot of head wounds, people shouting and screaming hysterically, but most people were standing,” she said.
Two women were seriously injured in the blast – a 58-year-old Spanish woman and the owner of the bar where the explosion originated, a 36-year-old woman from Morocco.
“I saw her there with severe burns, walking in circles, so I went over to help her,” Debbie continued.
READ MORE: Two people die one week after bar explosion in Spain’s Mar Menor area
“But when I got there, I was shocked. I knew immediately that she wasn’t going to make it. I knelt down, trying to reassure her, dressing her in loose clothes to protect her burns from the sun.”
Both women died in hospital a week later.
Lisa, 51, was in her kitchen in San Pedro del Pinatar (Murcia) when an explosion at a bar went off.
“It sounded like a terror attack, like a bomb had gone off,” the real estate worker told the Olive Press.
“It was a sound that was really, really scary. We all jumped out of our skins, absolutely not having a clue what had just happened.”
Lisa, who lives on the same street as the bar, rushed outside to witness scenes of devastation.
“Then all of a sudden, chaos – just pure chaos,” she said. “People were screaming and shouting, and it felt to me like we were under attack.”
The British resident described seeing ‘blood, blood, blood and people covered in glass shards’ as emergency services rushed to the scene.
“There were splintered vegetables everywhere, metal – it looked like a bomb had gone off. Literally.”
READ MORE: Bar explosion in Spain that seriously injured two people was caused ‘deliberately’
The tragedy took a sinister turn when the Guardia Civil’s investigation concluded the blast was deliberate, with experts finding a cut to the rubber casing on a gas butane cylinder inside the bar.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” said Lisa, adding that the bar had a notorious local reputation.
“It was very well known for its dealings with drugs, prostitution, that kind of thing,’ she explained. ‘It wasn’t particularly a good place. It was not a nice place to frequent.”
Lisa’s suspicions were immediate following the explosion.
“My first thought was that they were cooking up some drugs in the back, and it’s all gone wrong and blown up. That’s the kind of place it was.”
She said the bar, Casa Javi, had suffered a serious fire about a year ago, also affecting a home above.
Police were regularly called to deal with fights, and residents claimed the bar had been a ‘clandestine’ brothel under previous management.
READ MORE: Costa Blanca city has sewers blasted with pesticide to stop cockroach explosion
Officers had hoped to interview the bar owner about the explosion, but she never regained consciousness before passing away.
It means the exact details behind the explosion may never be known.
The night before the blast, San Pedro Policia Local officers found the bar owner walking strangely on a beach, possibly under the influence.
While no crime was committed, she was ‘known’ to police.
The tragedy has deeply affected the local community.
“I think a lot of the community felt really terrible for the three people seriously injured,” said Lisa.
“The worst thing was people were going out to do their vegetable shopping, browsing around the market, only for it to become the last day of their life. That’s pretty freaking awful.”
Click here to read more Murcia News from The Olive Press.
