Lawrence Family Settles Suit With Columbia Gas After Explosion Destroys Home

LAWRENCE (CBS) – Columbia Gas says it has reached a settlement with a family whose house was blown up in the Merrimack Valley gas explosions last fall, leaving a young man dead.

Terms of the settlement were not made public when it was announced Tuesday morning.

"The matter was amicably resolved between the parties.," Columbia Gas said in a statement.

Omayra Figueroa's family filed the lawsuit last September, two weeks after two blasts tore through their home on Chickering Road. Her son Christian and daughter Shakira were severely hurt.

Christian was sitting in a car with his 17-year-old brother and their friend, 18-year-old Leonel Rondon, when one explosion caused a chimney to collapse, crushing the car and killing Rondon. His family has a separate lawsuit against Columbia Gas.

Inside the home, Christian's mother Omayra was thrown by the blasts and struggled through the debris to help her daughter Shakira who could no longer feel her legs. Her "face was the only part of her that remained visible," according to the lawsuit. She suffered "catastrophic crushing injuries to her pelvis and legs" for which she's undergone multiple surgeries.

As part of the settlement, Columbia Gas said it's "providing a motorized wheelchair, a mobility van, and modifications" to the Figueroa's new home.

"Things will never be the same for the Figueroa family, but today is an important step forward on a long road towards healing," the Figueroas' lawyer, Socrates De La Cruz, said in the joint statement with the company.

"The company recognizes the devastating impact of what happened, and they knew they needed to help try to make things better for the family and the Merrimack Valley Community. With this settlement, they have done just that."