A father of six who was killed in a massive hydrogen blast at a water treatment plant in Londonderry was essentially working on top of a bomb, the inquest into his death has heard this month. The worker was propelled over 100 ft vertically in the explosion at the Carmoney Water Treatment Plant, near Eglinton in June 2005. His death was instantaneous because of the shocking extent of injury. Along with multiple fractures, contusions and lacerations, his windpipe and gullet were ripped apart and both of his legs were partially blown off. The man, and his colleague who survived, were widening air vents on the roof to help hydrogen gas escape from a storage area, when a build-up of the highly flammable gas was ignited by a spark from an angle grinder.
The tank above where they were working contained a hydrogen chloride solution which emitted highly flammable hydrogen gas as a by-product of the chlorine making process. The surviving colleague fell over 20 ft through a hole in the roof caused by the explosion and into a tank full of bleach. Miraculously he only suffered a broken leg. We reported back in the January 2007 Monthly Bulletin, that a Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSE NI) investigation determined that the Northern Ireland Water Service were to blame for the tragic incident, citing shortcomings in the risk-management procedures at the plant. Measures have since been put into place to prevent such a horrific incident from happening again.
