For simulating an explosion, you could change the entity from a character controller to a physics object - maybe a ragdoll - and afterwards back to a character controller.
Yes, but to do that, you have to delete the ragdoll and create the player new at the same place.
If you let the player turn into a ragdoll, and then start the player function again with the same model, you will become a unmoveable, wired on the groung laying charector, whith you can`t really conrtoll...