Mitchell A. Kueffer, president, KCI of Georgia, Inc., will never forget a day back in June 1998.
“We were contracted to replace a wire rope assembly on the No 1 boiler hoist on the 14th floor at a local power plant. It was a 10 US ton capacity double reeved hoist with over 800ft of wire rope,” he begun.
Kueffer sent in a four-man crew to perform the replacement; two men on the 14th floor and two on the ground floor. Communication between the technicians was by means of hand held radios.
The crews had been working in the power plant for many years and “we thought we were familiar with the area and its surroundings. We couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Unknown to the crew, there were three emergency relief steam valves directly above the maintenance platform that serviced the boiler hoist. “Although we had serviced this hoist many times over the years no plant personnel had ever mentioned the emergency valves to us. There were no warning signs or any indication of potential danger in the area,” Kueffer explained.
During the afternoon, while reeving the new wire rope, the entire boiler tower began to shake. Pipes started banging and all contractors in the area began to vacate the boiler tower. “Before our technicians had a chance to get down from the maintenance platform, the boiler overheated.”
When the super-heated steam reached the first of three emergency relief valves, instead of directing the steam up through the pipe in the roof, the number one valve malfunctioned and allowed the steam to blast down, directly on top of the two technicians.
Kueffer remembers the horrific consequences: “Both technicians were severely burned. Their skin had literally melted away from their bodies. They were both flown to the burn centre in Augusta, Georgia, and placed in drug induced comas, due to the extreme amount of pain each was experiencing.”
Three days later, the younger of the two men, who was just 32-years-old, died. He never woke up from the coma.
Though the second man was not expected to survive, after six weeks in a coma, he awoke. Mentally and physically disabled, he is unable to ever work again.
Kueffer said that through an OSHA investigation, it was learned that the power company had contracted repairs to the emergency relief valves. “The technician had neglected to tighten the flange bolts on the valve, which resulted in the failure that caused the disaster,” he added.
Today, Kueffer teaches all of his technicians to be certain of the areas that they are working in.
“This was a very costly, devastating accident that could have put us out of business. Through no fault of our own, we were dragged into a multi-million dollar law suit. It cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars and resulted in insurance premiums that, quite literally, doubled. Our competitors learned of the accident and some used it to spread rumours and lies about us, in an attempt to destroy our reputation,” Kueffer said.
The message is loud and clear.
Richard Howes, Editor
