After an explosion at a Georgia factory, warehouse, processing plant, or other industrial facility, investigators may arrive from several directions. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) may become involved. Fire investigators may examine the scene. The company may begin its own investigation, while insurers, equipment manufacturers, contractors, and attorneys may bring in additional experts.
It can look like everyone is trying to answer the same question: What caused the explosion?
They are not necessarily investigating for the same reason. Understanding those different purposes can become important when an explosion leaves workers, contractors, visitors, or people nearby with catastrophic injuries.
OSHA Looks at Workplace Safety
When an industrial explosion causes a work-related fatality or certain severe injuries, federal reporting requirements may apply. OSHA can investigate whether workplace safety standards were violated and whether a violation contributed to the event.
That investigation may involve interviews, photographs, records, equipment, workplace procedures, training materials, and other evidence.
OSHA’s purpose, however, is enforcement of workplace safety law. Its investigation is not conducted specifically to determine every person or company that may be legally responsible for compensating someone injured in the explosion.
Fire Investigators Have a Different Role
An explosion involving fire may also bring local or state fire investigators to the scene.
Georgia’s State Fire Marshal Investigation Unit performs fire origin-and-cause examinations and assists fire departments, law enforcement agencies, and other authorities. When investigators determine that a fire was intentionally set, the inquiry can become a criminal investigation.
The focus may therefore include determining where a fire or explosion originated, how it started, and whether suspicious activity was involved.
Those findings can provide important evidence, though they may not answer every question relevant to a civil injury claim.
The Company May Conduct Its Own Investigation
The business operating the facility has its own reasons for determining what happened.
An internal investigation may examine failed equipment, maintenance practices, employee actions, production processes, safety procedures, chemical handling, or other operational issues. The company may need to determine whether the equipment can safely restart and what changes it should make before operations resume.
But the company may also face potential legal claims arising from the explosion.
That makes it important to recognize that an internal investigation is being conducted for the company’s purposes, not on behalf of injured people.
Insurers and Private Investigators May Be Looking for Different Answers
Multiple insurers can become involved after a major industrial event. Property insurers may investigate physical damage. Liability carriers may evaluate potential claims. Other insurers may have interests connected with contractors, equipment, or businesses involved at the facility.
Experts retained by those insurers may examine machinery, debris, burn patterns, electrical systems, chemical processes, or other evidence.
Attorneys representing injured people may also retain independent engineers, fire and explosion experts, product specialists, or other professionals. Their investigation may focus on questions that a government agency or company investigation was never intended to resolve.
For example, did defective equipment contribute to the explosion? Did an outside contractor perform unsafe work? Was maintenance deferred? Did multiple companies control different parts of the operation?
One Explosion Can Produce Several Different Stories
After a catastrophic industrial explosion, no single report may contain every fact needed to understand responsibility.
At Ashby Thelen Lowry, our Atlanta personal injury attorneys investigate serious industrial accidents by looking beyond any single agency’s findings. Government records, company documents, maintenance histories, contracts, physical evidence, expert analysis, and other sources may be necessary to understand not only how an explosion occurred, but who may bear responsibility for the harm it caused.
If you or someone you love suffered catastrophic injuries in a Georgia industrial explosion, call (404) 777-7771 or contact us online to discuss what happened and learn more about your legal options.