Life after an explosion

Frank Roberts is a man who wears many hats.

Any day of the week you may see him traveling to the countryside to collect and inspect rocks to feed his passion for geology. He could be listening to rock- and- roll legends in Studio 6A of the Austin City Limits television show as a broadcast engineer. He could even be making use of his pyrotechnic license and creating explosives for war reenactments.

Roberts never thought any of these things that he holds dear to him could be threatened until his passion for explosives nearly cost him his life.

Roberts was working in his basement on Nov.3 for a World War II reenactment that was to take place the following week for a Veteran’s Day celebration. “I was boiling alcohol to purify the chemicals that go into the fuses for the explosives. A small quantity broke from a beaker and caught fire on the stove. I tried to use my hands to push the pot off of the stove and that is when it exploded,” said Frank.
The explosion cost Roberts his left arm.

Still consciousness and aware of the damage done to his arms that looked to Roberts like “hamburger meat” he rushed up the stairs and locked himself in his bathroom so his wife Shirley would not see how badly hurt he was.

“I made sure my wife didn’t see me like that. I locked myself in the bathroom and told her to call 911. I also told her my blood type was A positive in case I needed blood…and I did.”

Roberts was rushed to the hospital where we woke up a few days later. The blast of the impact was so intense that he lost from his left mid-arm down, and much of his right thumb. Other injuries included two missing finger tips on his right hand and a chipped tooth.

“I was really lucky that the blast didn’t do more damage. Before I was trying to push the chemicals off of the stove I tried to blow them out. If the explosion had happened then I would have lost my head,” said Roberts.

The doctors were hopeful however that they could save his right hand through saving the thumb. “The doctors made a point of trying to save this hand because being without both hands I would become pretty useless,” said Roberts.

Roberts had his damaged left right thumb implanted into his torso for two months to regrow the tissue that was stripped away during the explosion. The procedure was successful and Frank now has use of his right hand due to the “re-grown” thumb taken from inside of his stomach.

Roberts is a broadcast engineer at KLRU-TV, the Austin Public Broadcasting Station that produces the popular music series Austin City Limits. “Any electronic equipment in the station has to be maintained and installed, there has to be someone at the station to keep it in tip-top shape. My specialty is the transmitter. I make sure that it keeps running.”

General Manager of KLRU Bill Stotesbery was worried for Roberts’s safety when he first found out about the explosion. “I just felt desperately sad and worried about Frank. It was not clear at the beginning how badly hurt he was.”

During his recovery the staff of KLRU made several trips to the hospital to visit Roberts, and help ease him through the recovery process. According to Stotesberry, Roberts was even able to send emails to his co-workers using a drink cozy slipped over his arm “nub” with a stylus attached to the end of it.

Roberts even made a surprise appearance at the annual KLRU Holiday party where he received a warm welcome. “I heard all of this cheering and I thought someone must have bowled a 300 game or something then I looked up and saw all of these people staring at me,” said Roberts, “That’s probably more than anything what got me through all of this. It was my friends that got me through this.”

Roberts is back at work and continues to be a part of KLRU and Austin City Limits during a time of immense changes not only for himself, but the station as well. Austin City Limits has left its home on UT campus and has moved downtown to the Moody Theatre. “Studio 6A was old and funky; this place is new and sterile, said Roberts, “It’s a great place to listen to music and the set looks great, but something is different.”

Along with a new space for Austin City Limits, he has a new arm. Roberts received a myroelectric prosthesis that is controlled by censors picking up on electrical impulses from his nerves. “I just have to think of moving and I move,” said Roberts.

A new studio and arm are not the only surprises that Roberts has received after the explosion nearly cost him his life. He received a gift that he thought he would never see again. “One of the firemen who responded to the accident called me back after I returned home from the hospital to return my wedding ring,” said Roberts, “He found it embedded in the ceiling.”