Sask. woman recalls Mexican explosion

A Saskatchewan woman says her family was left shaken but unharmed after being in the vicinity of Sunday's deadly explosion at a Mexican resort.

Five Canadians were killed in the blast that rocked the Grand Riviera Princess Hotel in Playa del Carmen on the Mayan Riviera — a woman, three men and a nine-year old boy. Two resort workers also died.

Karrie Kotylak of Montmartre, a village about 100 kilometres east of Regina, said she and her nine-year-old daughter had been in the hotel just a few minutes before the explosion. After using the washroom in the building, the Kotylak family, including her husband Clayton, was walking to the beach when they heard a loud sound.

When her daughter asked about it, she told her it was probably thunder, but within seconds, staff from the resort who were on the beach were rushing back to the building.

"As we turned the corner, my husband was in front of me, and he turned around and said to me, 'Karrie, the building is gone,'" she said. "Yeah, it was gone. It was awful … it was just a pile of rubble."

Broken glass was strewn everywhere, she said. There were people lying in the rubble, some with obviously broken bones and other injuries, she said.

It took about 20 minutes for ambulances to arrive, and in that time some Canadian nurses, along with lifeguards and other staff with first-aid training, went to work, she said. Kotylak, who has training as a first responder, pitched in, too.

"Very badly [injured], extremely badly, some of them," she said. "We got out the people we could see. After that, it was too unstable."

The volunteers helped put people on spine boards and used beach lounge chairs as gurneys, she said. "It was a total scene of chaos."

Mexican officials said the explosion seemed to be caused by gas from a nearby swamp pooling in the building. However, Kotylak said that about 10 seconds after the explosion her husband said he smelled gunpowder.

Kotylak took her daughter to a child-care area later in the day and as she was leaving she saw what looked like security forces in conflict with journalists who were trying to get closer to the site. "I walked into, like, a war zone," she said. "They were beating the journalists. I don't know who it was, whether it was police or hotel security."

Kotylak said something was being sprayed around that looked like it could be tear gas. Someone later told her it was a fire extinguisher, but she remained skeptical, she said.

Following the experience, the family moved to a different resort.

"We're shaken up, but we're all OK."