Have you been injured in a Fire or Explosion Accident on a Construction Site in Massachusetts? Choose an Experienced Lawyer. Choose Parker Scheer LLP.
Construction workers face many hazards while working at a construction site. One of these is the risk of a fire and/or explosion while on the job. Chemical fires, explosions resulting from natural gas storage, and dust explosions can occur when workers and property owners don’t follow the safety regulations, which have been set by Occupational Safety and Health Administrations (OSHA).
One of these, dust explosions, became a serious focus of OSHA after a series of deadly fires happened across the United States. One of these occurred in a foundry in Massachusetts in 1999. In order for a dust explosion to occur, the following five ingredients are required:
- Combustible particulates sufficiently small to burn rapidly when ignited;
- A suspended cloud of these combustible particulates at a concentration above the Minimum Explosible Concentration (MEC);
- Confinement of the dust cloud by either an enclosure or a partial enclosure;
- Oxygen concentration greater than the Limiting Oxygen Concentration (LOC) for the suspended dust cloud; and
- Delayed ignition source of adequate energy or temperature to ignite the suspended cloud.
According to a Safety Bulletin that was issued by OSHA, the casual factors of the dust explosion in the foundry in Massachusetts in 1999 included: (1) the inadequacies in the housekeeping to control the dust accumulations; (2) inadequacies in the design of the ventilation system; (3) inadequacies in the maintenance of ovens; and (4) inadequacies of the equipment’s safety devices. The fire that occurred in Massachusetts was a great tragedy, one that caused the deaths of three people and injuries to nine others.
Even if the fire and explosion does not cause any fatalities in itself, it can still result in serious personal injuries to the construction worker and the construction worker’s family. The construction worker may require life long medical care for the injuries, which may include burns, broken bones, head injuries, paralysis and death. Getting the medical care, physical therapy and/or rehabilitation that these types of injuries often require can be costly. In addition, these injuries can leave the construction worker unable to return to his or her previous line of work, and, in severe cases, unable to return to any kind of work at all. This can have a devastating effect on the worker and their family.
Injured in a Fire or Explosion Accident on a Construction Site in Massachusetts? Speak with a Dust Explosion Attorney to find out if you have a case.
Whether you or someone you know has suffered a serious injury or was killed as the result of a fire, explosion or dust explosion accident in Massachusetts, the explosion and fire accident attorneys at Parker Scheer are here to provide you with experienced representation. Contact us for a free confidential case review and receive a response within hours, or call us at (617) 886-0500 \. If you need a construction site lawyer outside of Massachusetts, contact us for a referral.
