A weekly newspaper photographer is the toast of his colleagues this week after catching the drama of a gas explosion – just minutes after a family home was blown apart.

Andy Payton, who has been with the Kent Messenger Group for five years, caught the remarkable images after chasing a fire engine which was screaming towards the scene.

Ironically, he would have been miles away if it hadn’t been for a frustrating long delay at a previous job.

The 46-year-old was on his way to his next assignment when he spotted the fire engine on its way to the village of Kemsley, outside Sittingbourne.

He was on the scene of the blast and taking his first pictures just ten minutes after the semi-detached property exploded on Tuesday.

Within an hour, Andy’s images were live on KM Group’s website www.kentonline.co.uk in a picture gallery along with audio and video, and eyewitness’ reports, while the Sittingbourne Messenger used his pictures on the front and on three inside pages of today’s edition as part of a special report.

Said Andy: “When I arrived on the scene I saw smoke rising into the sky and assumed that it was something like a car fire. But when I turned the corner and saw the house, I was amazed at the damage.”

Chief reporter Nicola Forman rushed down to the scene and spoke to shocked neighbours as firefighters continued to battle the blaze caused by the explosion.

Editor Matt Ramsden said: “Andy is a real pro, a good old-fashioned newsman with a great eye for an iconic image.

“I soon as I saw that first image, which was taken just minutes after the blast, I knew I had to splash it right across the front page to do it justice.

“Nicola used all her experience to get great quotes from residents and provided an on-the-scene audio report for KMfm and the website.

“Our online colleagues did a brilliant job as well, providing first-class rolling coverage of the ongoing drama. It was an outstanding effort all round.”

The man caught in the blaze suffered serious burns to his arms, but is now on the road to recovery.

Comments

biter (05/05/2009 15:09:20)
So somebody does what journalists have been doing since the year dot and everyone’s surprised about it?

cheese (05/05/2009 16:32:41)
Hmm… photographer/journalist does job… nothing wrong with a pat on the back but does this really merit a story on HTFP? Hurrah for managing to upload some pictures on the internet but newspapers up and down the land cover this sort of thing all the time…

manuwa (06/05/2009 19:48:56)
Must have been a slow week in Sittingbourne,

Mark (11/05/2009 21:02:00)
He would have been arrested instantly in Yorkshire for interfering with a crime scene.
The home of police tape pictures

Keith (26/05/2009 20:14:00)
Well done Andy. But like all photojournalists amongst us, don’t you just always have a camera to hand just in case this happens.
As noted before, it must have been a slow news day when one starts to write about one staff just doing their job. It’s the sort of thing I expect from the oodles of non-trained ‘journalists’ who have re-invented themselves out here in Spain, but I guess village life in England can be slow too!