A man from Denison, Texas has filed a suit against a Shreveport oil company after a near-fatal incident that occurred last year.
59-year-old Darrell Allen was a trucker with Kimrad Transport when it happened. On April 23, 2015, the trucker drove to Calumet’s Shreveport refinery in order to retrieve a load of asphalt for delivery.
However, at that refinery, his truck had been overfilled with liquid asphalt by 3,000 pounds. It had also been heated to 350 degrees which kept it from hardening.
The lawsuit stated that only one Calumet employee was present to offload the excess asphalt, so that worker instructed the trucker to help. Allen had no previous training in this regard.
The worker told Allen to check the asphalt levels from inside the tanker by going on top of the truck’s reservoir. He did this while the Calumet employee pumped out the asphalt with a hose.
However, both Allen and the worker were unaware that the hose had not been properly cleaned. Because of this, water was trapped inside it.
According to the lawsuit, after the water came into contact with the asphalt:
“the liquid hot asphalt vaporized the water which acted as a source of ignition to cause the asphalt to expand and explode out of the top of the tanker.”
According to The Scoop Blog, right before it exploded, Allen realized there was something wrong and he closed the tanker’s lid. But the explosion was so intense that the impact sent him flying onto the ground, immersing him in the burning, liquid asphalt.
A security camera caught the shocking moments of the accident. In the video, Allen is seen covered in the burning asphalt. He tries to push himself up, but causes severe burns to his hands. He is seen running to an emergency shower where he then passes out.
The trucker suffered third-degree burns which covered 90 percent of his body. He spent over three months in intensive care where he underwent debridement treatments which he described as being “skinned alive” every day.
He has been recovering at home for the past year and is seeking damages from Calumet Specialty Products Partners. Allen’s doctor said that in his 30 years of treating burn victims, he has never seen a case like this where the victim survived. Allen’s lawyer claims that he will require millions in order to cover the medical attention needed for the rest of his life.
Calumet officials commented that their:
“thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the worker.”
Allen’s incident is not the first of its kind at at Calumet’s Shreveport refinery. According to the suit, a similar accident that occurred in 1999 wherein a truck driver was sprayed with hot asphalt after the truck was overfilled. In this case, the company’s plant safety director stated that truck drivers are never allowed to participate in the offloading process of liquid asphalt.
In addition to these incidents, a Calumet employee, 55-year-old George Bobby Hughes, died as a result of injuries suffered at the same refinery on May 20.
Calumet was cited by OSHA with $173,000 in penalties for 22 “serious violations” as well as two repeat violations regarding health and safety in August of 2010. OSHA cited the company in 2007 for “willful, serious and repeat” violations with fines of $122,400.