SPRINGFIELD — UPDATE @ 10:01 p.m.: A second victim injured in the Springfield townhouse explosion on April 8 has died. Her 11-month-old daughter continues to recover in a hospital, the executive director, Springfield District Council - St. Vincent de Paul, said Thursday night.
The child’s mother, 39-year-old Macdala Ducatel, died April 15. News Center 7 and WHIO.com confirmed the woman’s death through Springfield Fire Battalion Chief Dan Faust and a Montgomery County Coroner’s investigator.
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Macdala Ducatel’s sister, 50-year-old Edeline Ducatel, was killed in that explosion.
Casey Rollins, the St. Vincent de Paul executive director, said of Macdala Ducatel’s daughter, “We’re working closely with that family member as he works to get his child healing. We need lots of baby stuff. We have an 11-month-old girl who needs lots of things. We’re starting from scratch here with this family.”
The baby is doing much better, “on the road to recovery. I think we’ll be seeing her real soon,” Rollins told News Center 7′s Brandon Lewis.
Springfield firefighters were dispatched to the residence on East Home Road about 1 p.m. April 8 on reports of a natural gas leak. Moments after crews arrived, the structure exploded, Springfield Fire Chief Brian Miller told News Center 7 on scene. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.
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Eight families -- not all of them Haitian immigrants -- were displaced because of the explosion, Rollins said, noting that St. Vincent de Paul has been working with six of the families the organization has been able to contact. The Ducatels were believed to be the only immigrant family in that building, Rollins said.
Springfield had become home to the Ducatel family because St. Vincent de Paul has a location in the heart of Haiti. St. Vincent de Paul had been helping the family with translation, Rollins said, and with helping the adults find work “so they can become legitimate employees in America. They want to provide for their families.”
Rollins commended the city of Springfield, Clark County and several agencies that have helped -- the Red Cross, the Clark County Health District, Salvation Army, Second Harvest Food Bank, United Way, Jobs and Family Services, Walmart and Meijer to name a few.
“We have some amazing partnerships,” Rollins said.
She also is asking everyone in the community and throughout the region to give what they can, be it money or clothing or food, to St. Vincent de Paul for all eight families displaced because of the disaster. All of the victims have been offered alternative housing by the current property owners.
“All of these folks are in trauma,” Rollins said.
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