Pregnant woman hospitalized after Dunwoody gas explosion, delivers healthy baby boy

DUNWOODY, Ga. - Days before Christmas, the gas explosion that leveled an apartment building in the Dunwoody Village apartment complex sent four people to the hospital. Ashley Hurd, nine months pregnant at the time, was one of them.

"The apartment was shaking and the picture frames are falling off of the wall," Hurd said.

She wasn’t in the building that was leveled, but one close by. She said in the moments that followed, she had a panic attack, started having contractions, and then went into labor.

"We didn't want the baby to be too early because I had enough problems with the pregnancy already," Hurd said.

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An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, along with three other people injured in the blast. Doctors were able to stop the contractions.

On New Year’s Eve, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Jaxson.

They are still in the hospital but hope to head home within a few days. Hurd’s apartment was damaged but not severely.

While she’s counting her blessings, Hurd said she is angry about the situation. She said she had smelled the gas throughout the neighborhood for hours, but didn’t think too much of it because the fire department and Atlanta Gas Light were already there.

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She wants to know why no one knocked on her door.

"We couldn't make sense of why we couldn't get out or why weren't we evacuated hours earlier when we smelled the gas," she said from her hospital bed. "Even if it didn't mean anything, they should have evacuated us and at least let us know what was going on."

Atlanta Gas Light said they were responding to the leak caused by a third-party contractor who was digging a hole and struck a line.

At least 10 families were displaced by the fire, according to the American Red Cross.

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