By Marcell Owens, Owner, McCray Law Firm, PLLC · Houston, Texas
Knowing what to do after a refinery explosion is not about acting fast for the sake of it. It is about understanding that the plant is already doing three things at once, and two of them create documents that will decide the case.
A refinery explosion sets off parallel processes. Medical care and family crisis. The operator’s own required investigation. And, frequently, investigations by federal agencies. The worker and the family are living inside the first one. The evidence that matters lives inside the second and third.
Here is the fact that changes how the first week should be spent. Under 29 CFR 1910.119(m), OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard, employers shall investigate each incident which resulted in, or could reasonably have resulted in, a catastrophic release. That investigation must be initiated as promptly as possible, but not later than 48 hours after the incident. And the resulting reports must be retained for five years.
So a written investigation report almost certainly exists, it was begun within two days of the explosion, and there is a federal obligation to keep it.
At McCray Law Firm we tell families that plainly, because it reframes the whole timeline. The question is not whether a record was created. It is whether anyone will ever ask for it.
What to do after a refinery explosion: the first 72 hours
Priorities in order, and the order matters.
1. Medical care, without minimizing anything. Report every symptom, including the ones that seem small next to a burn or a fracture. Blast injuries, inhalation exposure, hearing damage, and head trauma frequently present late and get attributed to something else if they were never mentioned. The initial record shapes everything downstream.
2. Report the injury, accurately and completely. Reporting matters and delay creates problems. Report it. What deserves caution is everything beyond reporting.
3. Do not give a recorded statement. Not to the plant’s safety team, not to an insurer, not to a third-party administrator. A statement given while medicated, incomplete on symptoms, and before anyone has examined the equipment is very difficult to walk back.
4. Sign nothing. Under Section 406.033(f) of the Texas Labor Code, a post-injury waiver of a cause of action must meet specific conditions to be valid, including coming at least 10 business days after the injury was reported and following a medical evaluation. A document offered in the first days may not satisfy the statute at all. Have anything you are handed reviewed before you sign it.
5. Photograph and preserve what you can reach. Your own gear, your clothing, your PPE, your badge and assignment records, and anything you were carrying. If you or a family member can safely photograph the area, do it — but do not enter a restricted or unsafe site to get a picture.
6. Write down what you remember, today. Time, unit, the task, the equipment by number if you know it, who was working with you, what you heard or smelled before it happened, and what you were told afterward.
7. Identify every witness with personal contact information. Contractors rotate off site when a turnaround ends. Employee IDs are not enough.
8. Get legal advice before the week is out. Not because a decision has to be made, but because preservation demands cannot be sent backward.
What the 48-hour rule means for your case
Most articles about refinery accidents tell families to “gather evidence.” That advice is close to useless, because the evidence that decides these cases is not accessible to the family. It is inside the plant.
The PSM standard changes the picture, because it obligates the operator to produce records rather than merely permitting it.
Incident investigation. Under 1910.119(m), the investigation of an incident that resulted in, or could reasonably have resulted in, a catastrophic release must be initiated as promptly as possible and no later than 48 hours after the incident. Reports are retained for five years. That means a contemporaneous written account exists, created while the scene and the memories were fresh.
Process safety information. Under 1910.119(d), the employer must maintain a written compilation of process safety information — the hazards of the chemicals involved, the technology of the process, and information about the equipment. This is what establishes what the operator knew about the hazard before the explosion.
Mechanical integrity. Under 1910.119(j), the standard requires written procedures to maintain equipment integrity, training for maintenance personnel, inspections and tests performed in accordance with manufacturers’ recommendations, correction of deficiencies before further use of the equipment, and quality assurance for fabrication and installation. Every one of those obligations leaves a paper trail, and the requirement to correct deficiencies before further use is a specific standard against which a decision to keep running can be measured.
Management of change. Under 1910.119(l), written procedures must manage modifications to process chemicals, technology, equipment, and procedures — other than replacements in kind — with the safety and health impact reviewed and authorized before implementation. When a process was changed and something failed afterward, there is a documented decision about that change, and a documented review, or a documented absence of one.
The standard applies to processes involving highly hazardous chemicals at or above the threshold quantities listed in its Appendix A, and to Category 1 flammable gases and flammable liquids with a flashpoint below 100°F in quantities of 10,000 pounds or more. Whether it applied to the specific process that injured you is a technical question requiring the records.
None of this tells you what any agency concluded, and this article does not suggest that an agency finding can simply be handed to a jury. Whether a particular investigative document or finding is admissible in a civil case is a separate legal question. What the standard tells you is that the documents exist. Our guide to what an OSHA refinery investigation produces goes through the full inventory.
What disappears, and why speed is not paranoia
A plant has legitimate reasons to move quickly after an incident. It has to restore safe operation, repair what failed, and get a unit back online. Nobody has to act in bad faith for the proof to vanish.
Equipment gets repaired, replaced, or scrapped. The failed component goes to a lab, or to a dumpster. Piping and vessels are cut out. Control system and process historian data ages and cycles. Contractor crews demobilize and scatter across the Gulf Coast when the turnaround ends. Site access closes to anyone without a badge. And the operator’s own investigation — the one required within 48 hours — is completed and filed while the family is still at the hospital.
A preservation letter sent in week one reaches a scene. A preservation letter sent in month six reaches a repaired unit.
That is the entire argument for early counsel, and it has nothing to do with rushing a decision about whether to bring a claim.
The status question that comes first
Before anything is valued, one question has to be answered: which company, in the eyes of Texas law, is your employer.
Under Section 406.002 of the Texas Labor Code, workers’ compensation coverage is elective for private employers in Texas, so the first thing to establish is whether your employer subscribes at all. If it does not, Section 406.033(a) provides that it cannot use the defenses of contributory negligence, assumed risk of injury, or negligence of a fellow employee — though Section 406.033(d) still requires the plaintiff to prove the employer’s negligence.
And under Section 406.123, where a general contractor and a subcontractor agree in writing that the general contractor provides workers’ compensation coverage, the general contractor becomes the employer of the subcontractor’s employees for workers’ compensation purposes. On a plant site that written agreement can reshape who is a third party and who is not.
This is the heart of a plant case, and it is covered in full in our guide to contractor or employee status in a Texas plant injury claim. It is also why the contracts get requested alongside the medical records rather than after them.
What we do in the first weeks
- Preservation demands go out immediately — for the equipment and the failed component, the incident investigation file, process safety information, mechanical integrity and inspection records, management of change documentation, control system and process historian data, radio and communication records, contractor rosters, and training records.
- We request the contracts between the plant owner, the general contractor, and your employer, along with certificates of insurance and any site-wide insurance program documents.
- We identify every company that was on the unit, because third parties are where plant cases are built. The map is in our guide to who is liable in a Texas refinery accident.
- We take over communication with the plant, the insurers, and any administrator.
- We locate the crew before demobilization scatters them.
- We retain the right experts — process safety, metallurgy, fire and explosion origin, and, where needed, life care planning.
Your job is to get treatment and hold on to what you already have. Our job is to reach the record before the unit goes back online.
If the explosion caused a death
A plant fatality activates two frameworks at once, and the workers’ compensation analysis is not the whole picture.
Texas law provides a wrongful death claim under Sections 71.002 through 71.011 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents under Section 71.004. That is a closed class — siblings and grandparents are not in it. The estate separately holds a survival action under Section 71.021 for what the worker suffered between the injury and the death, which in blast and burn cases is a substantial and painful part of the record.
Under Section 16.003(b), a death action generally must be brought within two years from the day the injured person dies, which is a different date from the day of the explosion when someone survives for a period. Our guides to who can file a wrongful death claim in Texas and the wrongful death statute of limitations in Texas work through both points.
How a wrongful death claim interacts with a workers’ compensation claim, and what exceptions may apply where the conduct was worse than careless, needs a lawyer looking at the facts.
Key takeaways
- A written investigation report almost certainly exists. Under 29 CFR 1910.119(m) it had to be initiated within 48 hours of the incident, and reports are retained for five years.
- The PSM standard generates a paper trail: process safety information, mechanical integrity records, management of change documentation, and incident investigation reports.
- Report everything medically, and sign nothing. Section 406.033(f) sets conditions for a valid post-injury waiver, including a wait of at least 10 business days after the injury was reported.
- No recorded statements before legal advice.
- The scene has a short life. Equipment is repaired, components are scrapped, data cycles, and contractor crews demobilize.
- Status comes before valuation. Whether your employer subscribes, and whether a written agreement under Section 406.123 makes the general contractor your statutory employer, changes what you can pursue.
- A death activates Texas wrongful death and survival claims with their own beneficiaries and their own deadline measured from the date of death.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the first thing I should do after a refinery explosion?
Get medical care and report every symptom, including the ones that seem minor. Then report the injury accurately. Then stop — do not give a recorded statement and do not sign anything. Then get legal advice inside the first week, so preservation demands reach the equipment and the records before the unit is repaired and returned to service.
Does the plant have to investigate what happened?
Under 29 CFR 1910.119(m), employers shall investigate each incident which resulted in, or could reasonably have resulted in, a catastrophic release, and that investigation must be initiated as promptly as possible and no later than 48 hours after the incident. The reports are retained for five years. Whether the standard applied to the specific process involved is a technical question that depends on the chemicals and quantities at issue.
Can I get a copy of the investigation report?
Not by asking the plant as an injured worker, in most cases. Records like this are reached through preservation demands and formal discovery in a legal claim. The reason the 48-hour and five-year requirements matter is that they tell you the document exists and should still be in existence — which is very different from being able to walk up and request it.
The plant’s safety team wants a recorded statement. Do I have to give one?
Report your injury, and report it fully and accurately. A recorded statement is a different thing, and it should wait until you have legal advice. Statements given in the first days — while you are medicated, before symptoms have fully emerged, and before anyone has examined the equipment — are the ones that cause the most damage later.
They offered me a check and paperwork. Should I take it?
Have it reviewed first. Section 406.033(f) of the Texas Labor Code sets conditions for a valid post-injury waiver of a cause of action, including that it come at least 10 business days after the injury was reported, follow a medical evaluation by a non-emergency care doctor, and be in a conspicuous writing entered voluntarily and with knowledge of its effect. A document offered quickly may not satisfy those conditions.
I am a contract worker, not a plant employee. Does that change anything?
Substantially, and usually in ways worth understanding early. Your legal position depends on which company is your employer and which are third parties, and on Texas Labor Code sections including 406.002, 406.033, and 406.123. Our guide to contractor or employee status in a Texas plant injury claim covers it in detail.
How long do I have to bring a claim after a refinery explosion?
Personal injury claims in Texas are generally subject to a two-year period under Section 16.003(a) of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and a death action generally within two years of the date of death under Section 16.003(b). Workers’ compensation deadlines are separate and can be shorter. The practical window is shorter still, because the physical evidence does not wait. Confirm your dates with a licensed attorney.
My husband died days after the explosion. Which claim is ours?
Texas law provides a wrongful death claim for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents under Section 71.004, and the estate separately holds a survival action under Section 71.021 for what he suffered before dying. There may also be workers’ compensation questions depending on employment status and coverage. This combination needs specific legal review rather than a general answer, and the complete medical record from the explosion through the death is central to it.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case, and whether a federal standard applied to a particular process is a technical question requiring the records. McCray Law Firm, PLLC is licensed to practice in Texas and is admitted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. If you believe you may have a claim, speak with a licensed attorney about your situation before any deadline passes.
About the author. Marcell Owens is the owner of McCray Law Firm, PLLC in Houston, Texas. He earned his J.D. cum laude from Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law and has been licensed to practice in Texas since 2015. He is admitted in Texas and in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and was included in the Top 40 Under 40 National Black Trial Lawyers. He works with a team of attorneys handling personal injury and wrongful death matters across Texas.
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McCray Law Firm is committed to answering your questions about Personal Injury and Premises Liability law issues in Texas. We offer a free consultation and we will gladly discuss your case with you at your convenience. Contact us today to schedule an appointment, or read more about how we handle refinery accident cases.
Office Location 24 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1800 Houston, Texas 77046 832-582-5061