Blasting debris strikes Cape Ray home, narrowly misses teen

A family on the west coast of Newfoundland are shaken after an almost seven-kilogram rock crashed through the roof of their home Monday evening and nearly struck their teenage son. 

The Wall family of Cape Ray was preparing supper around 4 p.m. NT when they felt the walls and ceiling of their home shake, as though they were experiencing an earthquake.  

"Moments later the ceiling exploded," Helena Wall told CBC News Tuesday.

"We didn't know what happened but, after we looked around, we found a huge rock that had come through our ceiling."  

The family lives 250 metres away from a blasting site for Emera's Maritime Link, a subsea cable initiative that's part of the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project.

• Maritime Link on schedule to be in service by 2017: Emera   
• Maritime Link construction underway in western Newfoundland  

While there have been previous blasts, Wall said she's never heard or felt anything while inside her home.     

When the rock crashed through the ceiling, Wall said it also filled her home with debris. The floor, she said, is ruined, while her fridge and a glass door have been damaged. 

But most alarming of all was that the boulder fell just centimetres from her 18-year-old son, Aiden, who was sitting at a computer desk in the kitchen. 

"I was trembling," she said. "It was so upsetting."

The severity of the situation didn't hit the family until some time later. 

"It didn't occur to us right away what could of happened, that was later when we [said], 'Oh my God, he was sitting right here.' He could have been killed," Wall said. 

"It's pretty stressful. We didn't sleep last night."

Representatives from Emera have since visited the home, and the company said it will pay for all repairs, which Wall estimates to be around $3,000.

Blasting suspended

According to Jeff Myrick, the senior manager of communications with Emera Newfoundland and Labrador, all work at the site has been suspended while the company investigates the incident.

"For something like this to happen, we want to make sure that it doesn't happen again, so that's why work is stopped," Myrick told CBC News.

Subcontractors Marine Contractors Inc. and Newfoundland Hard-Rok Inc., hired to blast at the site, will repair the damage to the Wall's home.

Crews began repairing the roof Tuesday afternoon.