If it wasn’t for God’s intervention, Curtis Howington says he would not be still alive.

The 67-year-old Wesson resident survived the explosion of his Beauregard-community shop just over a week ago.

He had been sharpening lawnmower blades the previous weekend in the 30-foot-by-30-foot shop behind his home. At 10:30 on that Monday morning, he walked back into the open door of the metal building to move a few items so he could pull his truck inside to work on it. When he touched a mower blade and the grinder, the world blew up.

Howington was thrown out of the building through the open doorway — the only door in the building — suffering some minor burns on his arm and face, bruising on his shoulder and rib cage, and various cuts, but no serious damage. 

“The Fire Marshal was here,” Howington said. “He said it was Freon, which is not flammable, but is combustible. I do a good bit of work on cars, and had just bought some.”

Freon is stored under pressure in canisters, and is used as a coolant in air conditioning systems.

“It was in a cabinet, and one to three of the cans may have been leaking. The fumes were trapped in the cabinet, and when I hit that grinder, it blew up,” he said. 

Every piece of tin and every board that made up the shop was broken or bent, said Howington.

A firefighter who responded to the incident said what saved the mechanic was the open front door — there was nowhere else he could have been thrown where the outcome would have been the same. 

“It would’ve blowed me all to pieces,” he said. 

Howington has lived in the same place for 25 years and operated his shop there. Disabled, and retired from the Copiah County School District as a mechanic a little over a decade ago, he, his wife and one son all live together in the home. 

The shop is a complete loss, along with everything in it — “all the normal stuff” you’d find in a shop, he said. 

He cautions everyone to “not store your Freon, or anything flammable, combustible, in your shop where you’re working.” 

Howington said he’s surrounded by good community and good friends, people who were there within minutes to help him. 

“And my friends have been here every day since, helping me clean up and getting things back to normal.”

There’s no doubt in Howington’s mind what — or Who — kept him from dying that day. 

“The Good Lord — all It could have been. Couldn’t have been nothing else. It should have blowed me to pieces.”