'Never did I expect to get a call like this': Carbonear woman loses partner in Iqaluit explosion

Almost a week after Noel Priddle, 50, was killed in a July 6 explosion in Iqaluit, his family is preparing to lay him to rest in Carbonear, N.L. 

"I screamed, I had my moment. It was devastating," says his partner of eight years, Diane Kennedy. 

• Man, 50, dead after explosion Thursday in Iqaluit neighbourhood
• 2nd man dead after explosion last week in Iqaluit neighbourhood

Kennedy said Priddle's body made it back home Tuesday for a Thursday burial in Victoria, where the man grew up.

Priddle and two other Newfoundlanders were repairing a boat parked between two homes when the blast occurred. He died almost immediately, while the two other victims were medevaced to hospital in Ottawa.

John Manning, 57, from Burin, succumbed to his injuries on Sunday, while a 26-year-old man who is also originally from Burin is still being treated. 

Funeral services for Manning will be held in Iqaluit and in Newfoundland. 

The Office of the Chief Coroner has determined the deaths were accidental, but the cause of the blast has not been determined.

'A chance you take when you go to work'

Kennedy told CBC News she was a bit worried when she didn't hear from Priddle, who usually called when he got off work at 6:30 p.m. 

She wasn't prepared for the horrifying news that came in a phone call from someone else.  

"I was out mowing the grass, when I came in my house phone was ringing," said Kennedy. It was a woman from the company Priddle worked with in Iqaluit, who told her there'd been an accident, and the men were in hospital. 

"I ran out through the garden to my sister's house which is just behind me. To this day I don't know if I spoke to her or if my sister spoke to her and I got the information from my sister."

Kennedy said a doctor called her a little after that to tell her Priddle, who has a 19-year-old son, had passed away. 

"I've often said to him, when he was going back on turnarounds, 'Noel, if something ever happens to you, how am I going to know?'"

Talking to Priddle's boss at KCM Maintenance and Construction on Saturday, Kennedy said she told him it wasn't his fault. 

"It's nobody's fault, it's a chance you take when you go to work in the daytime. But never did I expect to get a call like this."

Always had a smile

Kennedy said Priddle had been working in Iqaluit for almost 10 months, in stints of eight weeks there and three weeks at home. 

"He could laugh and carry on and joke just as well as the next one, but if Noel had something to say, he was saying it. He was very straightforward," she said. 

"And he always had a huge smile on his face, always."

All the messages of support from friends and family, the company, and the whole city of Iqaluit have been "amazing," Kennedy said.

She said she spoke to the 26-year-old survivor in hospital Monday night. 

"His words to me were, 'Oh, so you're the Diane Noel was always talking about," she said.