Two Riverhead construction workers suffer ‘extensive burns’ in gas explosion, fire at a house in Water Mill yesterday

Two Riverhead construction workers were injured when they accidentally cut a gas line in the basement of a Water Mill home, causing an explosion that leveled the two-story wood-frame house Wednesday afternoon.

Abner Canel, 18, is in critical condition in Stony Brook University Hospital, where his co-worker, Rolando Perez, 40,f is listed in stable condition, according to Southampton Town Police. Both were airlifted to Stony Brook with “extensive burns,” police said.

Canel and Perez were working in the basement of the unoccupied house, whose owner, a Manhattan man, had a demolition permit application pending, Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst told Newsday.

The explosion reduced the home to a pile of burning rubble, according to news reports and eyewitness accounts posted on social media.

“It shook me like a small earthquake,” one resident wrote on Facebook.

Numerous neighbors reported hearing a loud explosion and seeing heavy black smoke coming from the home at 21 Old Country Road just before 2:15 p.m. yesterday, police said. The explosion shook nearby homes and businesses, according to a report on the 27East website.

A neighbor, Austin Handler, said he got to the house to find the two men uotside the residence, dazed and injured, according to Newsday.

Both had cuts to their hands and face, he wrote on Facebook. “One of the worker’s jacket looked like it had gone through a paper shredder, from exploding glass that blew all the way out to the street. They are lucky to be alive,” he wrote.

When Southampton Town Police and Southampton Fire Department volunteers arrived at the scene moments later, they found the house fully engulfed in flames, according to a police press release.

Southampton Volunteer Ambulance and Southampton Village Ambulance personnel transported the men to a landing zone for a Suffolk County Police Medevac helicopter, which flew them to Stony Brook.

“The Southampton FD was able to extinguish the flames, but the house was completely demolished from the explosion,” Southampton Police said in a press release. “Southampton detectives and fire marshals determined that the two occupants were in the basement working on renovating the home and preliminary investigation indicates that they accidentally cut a gas pipe which caused the explosion. National Grid workers also responded to the scene,” police said.

Top photo caption: The blazing rubble of the house at 21 Old Country Road in Water Mill was captured in this photo by neighbor Austin Handler.  (Courtesy photo.)