Explosion kills 1 in San Juan County

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of these individuals, how very tragic.

it was a very sad day today in the oilfield as 3 men were injured not just 1 and we lost another due to a explosion and faulty equipment

this happened like a quarter of a mile from my house!

shacilynn wrote:

this happened like a quarter of a mile from my house!

Oh my, shacilynn did you hear the explosion

The young man who lost his life in this tragic accident is a very good friend of our family. Our prayers are with his family tonight as they deal with this tragedy.

Xena,
I think everyone in Aztec felt the explosion, it was huge. It shook my sisters house.

BMP,
I'm glad they found his family, last reports I had heard were they didn't know really to much about him since he'd only been here a little while.

God Bless his family and friends.

This is a very tragic accident and the young man was a very hard worker. I'm sure OSHA will get to the bottom of this and hopfully figure out a safer way to handle these nitrogen tanks. We will miss him terribly!! Thank you for all the prayers.

Cheeky wrote:

Xena,
I think everyone in Aztec felt the explosion, it was huge. It shook my sisters house.
BMP,
I'm glad they found his family, last reports I had heard were they didn't know really to much about him since he'd only been here a little while.
God Bless his family and friends.

That means this worker was from south and hopefully he was not getting cheap pay. I hope OSHA gives a big fine to the Company. I hope the family also receives the benefits for the loss; although money will not replace the life of a human. This is similar to one of those who lost his life near Kirtland just a few years ago who was on the job for the first day and the company gets away with it. Our thoughts and prayers go to the family who loss the love one.

um why should the company get fined??? its called an ACCIDENT duh! my thoughts and prayers go to the family. i didn't hear the explosion because i was at school but it shook stuff at my uncles and my house and my mom was asleep and never heard it.

the one and only shaci wrote:

um why should the company get fined??? its called an ACCIDENT duh!

Dude, The company has the responsibility of providing a safe workplace for its employees. If OHSA determines that the company violated safety rules, they will get fined and appropriately so.

This is very sad. My prayers and condolences to the young man's mother & family.

Lobo Viejo wrote:

<quoted text>
Dude, The company has the responsibility of providing a safe workplace for its employees. If OHSA determines that the company violated safety rules, they will get fined and appropriately so.

ok but what if they didn't and it was caused by something else.

How unbelievably sad and devastated our family is. This was my cousin's son.(father's side) I live in Colorado and the news has hit us hard. Never do you expect someone so young to leave us like this. Presten has a special in our home. Never will we forget him.

the one and only shaci wrote:

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ok but what if they didn't and it was caused by something else.

The OSHA investigation should determine that. If the company followed all safety rules, and this was caused by a freak accident, no citations will be issued. Nitrogen is not a flammable gas, so I wonder what caused the explosion?

It wasn't just a simple tank of Niotrogen, it's a pump truck. they use Nitrogen to pressure test their lines before they start a frac job, which is neccessary to start the well producing. They usually put somewhere between 5,000 & 15,000#'s on the line. The Nitrogen leaves the tank going to the pump and as it leaves the pump it goes thruogh a check valve and on to the line. The check valve is supposed to keep the pressure from returning to the tank because the tank itself cannot withstand that kind of pressure. The check valve failed and while they thought they where testing the line they were actually pressuring up the tank and thats what caused the explosion. There are gauges that would indicate what was happening but apparently no one was looking at them.