Refrigerator Explodes Inside Florida Home, Several Rooms Damaged

A Whirlpool refrigerator exploded inside a family home in West Palm Beach, Florida on Saturday, damaging several rooms.

Grateful to be alive , Mark Ligondie, a resident, said, “I was in my room, I was asleep and I just heard the bang.”

He ran to the kitchen and suddenly his parents' refrigerator exploded.

“There were fumes coming everywhere,” said Ligondie, adding that the smell was so pungent that it made his eye sting, WPTV reported.

The fridge, which they had purchased just four months ago, was in pieces. These pieces were scattered all around the house.

“The fridge exploded and if you look at this angle right here, it expanded and expanded so much it bent the metal of the stove,” he said.

Neighbor Joshua Perez heard the explosion and the smoke alarm and ran to the house to help the family get out safely.

"Immediately I just saw the smoke,” Perez said.

Fire department was called, who immediately cleaned the house.

“And for them to say we’ve never seen this, this is something we have never seen in our life, is kind of alarming,” Perez said, adding that homeowners sh0uld be alert after such incidents.

“I’ve actually scheduled an appointment already because of how nervous this has made me just for general maintenance and I think that’s something everyone should do,” Perez said.

Though nobody was injured in the incident, the force of the explosion was so powerful that it damaged several rooms. The ceiling and nearby walls are cracked, the master bedroom’s door is damaged and a bedroom window is missing.

Ligondie called it “surreal.”

In a similar incident in 2016, a man was left with serious cuts and bruises, after a Samsung fridge exploded in Bingley, West Yorkshire . The blast damaged the home and smashed chunks out of a wall.

“Being crouched down saved me because I was hit by the base of the flying door, which then must have rolled over my back, shielding me from flying glass from broken shelves as it did so. Fortunately the door hit me first and protected me from the glass. There was glass splinters everywhere. The door then carried on, travelling about ten foot in total, then smashed into a kitchen cabinet. As it spun over me it took a big chunk of plaster out of the wall. It was a phenomenal explosion, I'm so lucky and feel I've used up some of my nine lives,” Robert Antill, 54, said, Daily Mail reported.

In another similar incident in 2014, three members of a family were killed when a refrigerator exploded in Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where all suffocated to death as thick smoke filled the house, post the explosion. Fire officials said, stabilizer or a circuit breaker could have averted the explosion.