It was a war scene that almost always requires body bags.
Almost. Mary Patterson found it hard to believe that anyone could survive the wreckage before her that moments earlier had been a small ranch house off E. Hoxie Road. She was headed home the morning of June 2, 2007, after completing a shift as a Leelanau County Sheriff’s deputy when an urgent call for help blared over her radio. She became the first emergency responder at the scene.
Patterson found planks punctuated with nails strewn across the yard and on the county road, insulation hung high in trees. A peaked roof lacked walls to support it, lying flat on the ground.
“The explosion had completely destroyed the house,” recalled Patterson, now a corporal with the Sheriff’s Office.
But there were survivors. In fact, all three members of the Johnson family — Matthew, his wife Sarah, and their 8-monthold son Harrison — escaped relatively unscathed.
Now it’s recognition time for the many first responders to the scene. They’re invited to Harrison’s graduation party this weekend, which will provide the family with an opportunity to personally thank the many people who helped them escape from the rubble that was once their home.
But thanks to responders will have to come second, according to Sarah. The first thank you is reserved for God, who she continues to credit for saving her son.
The explosion, of course, was a shock on that Saturday morning. Due to difficulties getting a furnace started, the contents of a propane tank had emptied into the crawlspace overnight.
Sarah and baby Harrison were in a room on one side of the house, with Matthew on the opposite side. Harrison was in a portable playpen.
“The position of the ‘pack and play’ was instrumental in keeping him alive. Me moving it close to the wall didn’t come from me. I didn’t think about it. And I moved it literally three seconds before the explosion,” Sarah recalled.
At once the Johnsons were lifted high into the air — 15 feet? — as the floor and walls of their home disintegrated. Matthew, Sarah and Harrison were trapped at different places below ground by tons of debris. Luckily the tenacity of the explosion left no oxygen to sustain fire.
“I just remember an overwhelming feeling of despair. I lost my baby. I just prayed as hard as I could, ‘Your will will be done.’ Those are the only words I could get out. But then I had a calm peace, from my head to my toes. I knew that was God saying that everything was OK,” Sarah continued.
And it was. Eventually. Matthew was found first. The explosion occurred while he was washing his hands in the bathroom, which caused the water pump to switch on with a spark. His left heel was shattered, but he survived.
Sarah was next. She was tattered and bruised and required staples to close a head wound.
“I heard someone screaming, and Mary (Patterson) found me. The next thing I knew a bloody hand reached out to me. I realized that that person had been going through the rubble looking for us and probably was cut by glass or nails. I don’t even know who that was,” Sarah said.
There are several possibilities as responders included county deputy Scott Robinson, Tribal officer Eric Rant, and Elmwood firefighters Keith Tampa — now the township fire chief —Gary Rushton and J.R. St. Croix. Fire and rescue departments responding to the call rushed in from Leland, Lake Leelanau and Cedar fire stations.
Still missing, though, was Harrison. His muted cries were heard 20 to 30 minutes after the explosion by Michigan State Police trooper Tim Halvorsen of Suttons Bay, who had wasted no time speeding to the scene from Lee Point Road near West Grand Traverse Bay.
“It didn’t take me very long,” Halvorsen said. “Everybody was talking on one side of the building, so Mary and I went to the other side. I pulled out debris and crawled down there. When I got down there I could hear him whimpering and whining. But I could not get him out because he was between two pieces of lumber.”
Minutes must have seemed like hours before a hydraulic lift created enough space to pull out Harrison. Sarah learned her son was alive when she heard him crying in an adjacent emergency room at Munson Medical Center. “I knew that was my baby,” she said.
One result of those emergency responder efforts — with a nod to heaven — just graduated from Traverse City Christian High School. Harrison Johnson is a talented musician, performing and recording mostly Christian songs while playing the piano and ukulele, and videographer. But his professional career may lie in becoming a restauranteur as he’s become a valued worker and leader at Chick-fil-A in Traverse City.
The Johnsons, who reside in Interlochen, attend Eden Bible Church in Beulah.
Regardless of the direction Harrison travels, he’ll be on a mission.
“For me, personally, with my mom moving me across the room just before the explosion, I think God wanted me here, and that’s what had to happen to keep me alive,” he said. At the open house he’ll be joined by his two sisters, 7-year-old Hadley and 5-year-old Hayden, his 14-year-old brother, Hayden — and many of those first responders from Leelanau County who helped pull him to safety.
“I really do appreciate that they were able to help my parents and get me out of the wreckage. I only had scratches and bruises,” Harrison said.
Per Halvorsen, “That’s why people are in this field, to help people. He probably won’t remember me, but I’ll stop by.”
