Repost from WSAZ 3 News, Charleston, WV

WSAZ EXCLUSIVE: Man Whose Home was Destroyed in Train Accident Shares Story

By: Andrew Colegrove, Feb 17, 2015 11:58 PM ET

FAYETTE COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) — The man who lived in the home destroyed in Monday’s train accident and explosions remains very much shaken.

“I barely escaped with my life,” Morris Bounds said.

Bounds says he had just done some cleaning when he heard a loud noise coming from the train tracks.

“I just heard metal banging together,” he said.

He looked out the blinds through his kitchen window up toward the tracks.

“I saw these tanker cars coming over the hill at me,” he said.

The 68-year-old retired machinist with bad knees, who has difficulty walking, says somehow he was able to muster the strength to take off running.

“I made it about 10 feet and heard the house caving in behind me,” he said. “I ran out of the house in my socks in the snow. The house was engulfed in flames.”

Bounds’ daughter and grandchildren had been staying at his home for a couple weeks and had just left the day before the accident.

His wife Patricia was in the hospital for open heart surgery.

He says had they been home, they’d have almost certainly all been killed.

His son Morris Jr. helped build the home 25 years ago.

“It was like a horror movie,” Morris Jr. said when describing what the scene was like when he arrived. “It’s going to be really sad for a while.”

Although he lost everything other than the clothes he was wearing, Bounds says he’s glad the accident happened where it did and not farther up the tracks, where more people could’ve been hurt.

Bounds is staying with his brother for now.

He did have to be treated at the hospital for smoke inhalation.

His wife Patricia is out of the hospital following her surgery, as well.

CSX has said they will fully compensate the Bounds couple.