Injured Canadian recalls blast in Mexico hotel

CANCUN, Mexico – When Larry Smith went to fetch coffee for his wife last Sunday, it really was a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As he reached for a banana in the lobby of the Grand Riviera Princess Hotel in Playa del Carmen, an enormous blast surged through the lobby floor.

He woke up covered in cement and blood and feeling a splitting pain in his back.

He is now in a Cancun hospital bed with screws in his back, having suffered a fractured spine and crushed discs.

"I remember hitting the floor, I remember the debris hitting, getting hit in the back. I knew that my back was absolutely shot," Smith said on Thursday, accompanied by his wife, Linda, and his 19-year-old daughter, Julie.

"I could see the devastation. It looked just terrible."

Just prior to the explosion, he said he met travel companion and co-worker Elgin Barron in the lobby. Barron, who worked at Com Dev in Cambridge, Ont., with Smith, died at the scene.

Linda Smith has clear recollections of the explosion, too.

"It was chaos. People were running around and I went and looked and saw it was the building where my husband was and it was just about gone," she said.

"I walked around in a circle saying, ‘My husband’s in there. Is he alive?’ And nobody knew. . . . They finally pulled him out and I saw that his eyes were open, he was alive and he was OK. But our friend passed away. And it was awful, scary, unbelievable."

Linda Smith praised the treatment her family has received from physicians and the hotel – which has covered all expenses and even took her shopping for clothes as she couldn’t retrieve her luggage. She said Canadian ambassador Guillermo Rishchynski and Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez Canto both paid visits.

Still, she wanted to head home as quickly as possible.

"It’s baby steps now until we get home," Linda Smith said. "I just want to go home as soon as we can."

Smith is expected to recover fully from his injuries and return to Canada early next week. Despite being connected to an intravenous drip and covered with small scars, he was in good spirits when visited on Wednesday. Linda Smith said he had been cracking jokes – and expressed satisfaction with his treatment in Mexico.

"The doctors here are absolutely fantastic . . . I’m getting all sorts of support, my wife is getting all sorts of support, people here have just been fantastic," he said. "I couldn’t ask for anything better – under the circumstances, of course," Smith said.

"The doctor says I’ll walk again and lead a normal life and for that I’m very grateful. I’m just glad to be here."

The native of Cambridge, Ont., was one of the 18 guests and employees at the Grand Riviera Princess who suffered injuries in the Nov. 14 blast, which claimed the lives of five Canadian guests and two Mexican nationals.

Killed in the explosion were Christopher Charmont, 41 and his nine-year-old son, John, both from Drumheller, Alta.; Malcolm Johnson, 33, from Nanaimo, B.C – who was in Mexico for his wedding; Darlene Ferguson, a 51-year-old grandmother from the Edmonton area; and Elgin Barron of Guelph, Ont.

Two other unidentified Canadians remain hospitalized in Playa del Carmen with second-degree burns and head injuries, said Dr. Italo Sampablo, medical director of the Hopiten medical facilities in the region. Two Mexican nationals also remain hospitalized.

The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, although Mexican officials have cast doubt on the original theory that an accumulation of organic gases from a nearby mangrove swamp might have ignited under one of the four lobbies at the Grand Riviera Princess.

Jaime Gonzalez Cano, director of two protected areas for the federal environment secretariat, said building on mangroves has been common in Quintana Roo, although new regulations have tried to minimize the activity.

"If you don’t respect (these rules) maybe you’ll get results like on" Sunday, he said, referring to the explosion.

No date has been given for finalizing the investigation. Hotel sales director Juan Llompart told Postmedia News on Monday that management was co-operating fully with investigators and that there had been no signs of imminent danger.

"We have inspections regularly," he said.

Smith expressed hope the investigation would be carried out properly – and hoped the cause was truly accidental.

"I work in the engineering industry and I know that mistakes can happen, errors can happen. I just hope that it’s not something that could have been avoided," he said.

"I know there’s an investigation and the truth will come out."

Meanwhile, the body of Darlene Ferguson has returned home to her family.

Ferguson, who lived just east of Edmonton, was in Mexico for her son’s wedding. She was walking Sunday with her two-year-old grandson at the Grand Riviera Princess Hotel, a sprawling complex in the beach-lined resort of Playa del Carmen, when the blast went off nearby. She died in hospital.

"We would also like to acknowledge our fellow countrymen who have been instrumental in helping us throughout this tragedy," her family said in a statement. "I don’t know what we would have done without you all."

With files from the Edmonton Journal