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A TRAGIC phone call made by a father before an explosion killed him and his two daughters has been revealed.
Dylan Danielson, 32, brought his two daughters, Hayven, 12, and Fayeah, 8, to work with him at the Horizon Biofuels plant in Nebraska when an explosion hit, trapping all three of them.
In Dylan’s final moments, he called his wife, begging her to try to get the two young girls out.
“Right after the building collapsed, he was pinned inside of it,” Robby Baker, Hayven’s stepfather, told KMTV News.
“He made a phone call to his wife and said where the girls were at, get someone in there to get them out, and he was pinned in, and there was fire all around him.
“Our lives are in there. We need to get them out.”
It was Dylan’s turn to watch Fayeah, who is the half-sister of Hayven and the biological child of the 32-year-old.
During her visit, Dylan brought the two girls to work with him on July 29, a privilege his boss had granted him.
However, while the girls waited in the break room of the wood pellet and animal bedding manufacturer, a tower in the plant abruptly exploded.
“[The break room] is in the bottom of the main tower – and it’s supposed to be a sturdy room,” Robby told WOWT.
“I don’t know if it’s made for an implosion like this.”
The thick smoke from the building and raging flames caused the building to collapse, making it impossible for crews to enter the building and assist safely.
Officers called in Nebraska Task Force One and 17 other agencies to help with the rescue, ABC affiliate KETV reported.
The extreme heat also slowed down the crews’ response with the Salvation Army and Red Cross working to help keep the first responders hydrated.
Helicopters and drones surveyed the area from a distance, helping first responders find an entry point to rescue the three trapped individuals.
Hours later, responders still hadn’t been able to enter the building as the fire raged on.
Our lives are in there. We need to get them out.
Robby Baker
The crews worked overnight to try and tame the fire, but it was still flaming the next morning which turned the mission into a recovery rather than a rescue.
“My heart hurts. It hurts for this situation, it’s a tragedy,” Fremont mayor Joey Spellerberg said during a press conference.
One day after the explosion, Dylan’s body was recovered.
Later that night, his daughters bodies were also recovered.
Since their bodies were discovered, several GoFundMe pages have been started to support their families.
“Hayven will always be a beautiful, goofy, caring, and bright ray of sunshine who gained her angel wings too soon,” one fundraiser read.
Another described Fayeah as a bubbly girl that lit up every room she walked in.
“[Dylan] was such a good daddy, he really was,” Dylan’s aunt Kathy Harle wrote on a remembrance page.
