Families Want Answers to Men’s Deaths : Accident: Cal/OSHA has issued sanctions, but questions remain as to what caused the fire that killed two workers at an O.C. sewage treatment site.

When they buried Robin Miller and Joe Patterson on Valentine’s Day, a lone Harley-Davidson led a procession of five white limousines and more than 150 cars from Upland’s First Presbyterian Church.

At the grave, in a rousing tribute to the pair’s deep friendship and spontaneity, the families chose an untraditional but appropriate musical send-off: “Born to be Wild.”

“They were such good men who loved life,” said Jackie Venezio, Patterson’s mother. “When it was over, I think everyone who knew them died a little bit inside that day. I know we have lost a big part of our lives.”

It has been more than three months since that emotional service, and the family’s grief is now mixed with anger. Venezio and other family members say they still don’t know what caused the flash fire that left the two young contract workers fatally injured, ankle-deep in sludge at a Huntington Beach sewage treatment plant.

The families’ questions have become even more persistent since last week, when the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued serious safety-code sanctions against the Orange County Sanitation Districts and the Ontario-based engineering firm, Pascal and Ludwig, where the two men worked.

Cal/OSHA officials also are expected to turn over results of a separate criminal investigation to the Orange County district attorney’s office next week. On Friday, county Supervisor William G. Steiner, one of the sanitation agency’s 42 directors, acknowledged that he has met recently with district attorney’s investigators to discuss his concerns about the incident.

But the lingering questions about the incident have especially haunted the family members, who last week filed wrongful death claims against the county’s sanitation districts.

Patterson, 32, was a gregarious man who had a promising career as a supervisor with the engineering firm. A bull of a man, Miller, 37, was a hard worker, and family members say he attended safety seminars regularly.

Both men were getting out of broken marriages, had become fast friends on the job and planned to become roommates. Miller also was a dad, the father of an 11-year-old girl named Lacey.

“I feel mad,” Lacey said earlier this week, tugging at the high school graduation ring left by her father and brushing away tears. “I’m mad because this was not supposed to happen. It should never have happened.”

Venezio said she can’t shake the terrible memory of seeing her only son after the fire, as he clung to life in a hospital intensive-care unit.

“For days, my son’s burned face was wrapped in bandages. All you could see were his eyes and a blister that no one could tend to,” she said. “When he died, for a month, I went to sleep thinking about those eyes and that blister. . . . We have to get to the bottom of (this).”

For both families, the bad news came Feb. 1, the day Patterson was supposed to close escrow on a new house that he and Miller planned to share.

“I remember he was so jazzed that day,” Patterson’s father, Andy, said. “Everything was just beginning to come together for him. He had the house, a boat and his next toy was going to be a Harley-Davidson.”

By 11:30 a.m., Andy Patterson and the others were rushing to UCI Medical Center in Orange where sanitation officials said his son, Miller and another man were taken with serious burns suffered in a work-related accident.

“When I got to the room, I walked right by his bed,” Andy Patterson said. “I didn’t even know he was my son. He was that bad off.”

He said the skin on his son’s arms was literally raw, his shoulder-length hair burned away. Andy Patterson said his son, unable to speak, flashed a “thumbs up” sign and occasionally nodded his head.

On a nearby bed, Miller lay in equally grave condition, his eyes swollen shut, completely unable to communicate with family members.

“His skin was pink and bloody,” said Georgianne Miller, his ex-wife. “I could tell it was Rob, but it really didn’t look like Rob.”

For days after the incident, family members and co-workers kept a vigil at the hospital’s intensive-care unit. Miller died Feb. 3, Patterson the next day.

It was during those hours of waiting that the families began to hear the first painful details from co-workers and other witnesses about how the men were injured.

The day of the fire, both men had been assigned to install a valve inside a seven-foot-deep concrete channel at the Huntington Beach sewage treatment plant at Brookhurst Street and Pacific Coast Highway.

Miller was working inside the channel operating a hammer, similar to a jackhammer, while Patterson and another worker, Richard Holm, remained aboveground.

Sanitation districts officials have declined to discuss the accident, citing the ongoing investigations. But family members and their attorney said they have pieced together this account of what happened:

Within minutes of starting work that day, the workers felt a small “explosion” and heard Miller’s screams. Patterson reportedly turned to find his best friend engulfed in flames and jumped into the trench to help.

As the two struggled to extinguish the flames, which by then had jumped to Patterson’s hair and clothing, Holms was engaged in a fight of his own to help his colleagues. It was not long before Holms was burned too; he survived.

Andy Patterson said witnesses told him that the fire seemed to come from an invisible source until the flames torched the workers’ clothing and hair, only to burn itself out. When it was over, Andy Patterson said, the workers were amazingly able to climb a ladder out of the trench and seat themselves on buckets, where they waited for help.

Even with their injuries, family members were told, one of the friends urged paramedics to take the other for treatment first.

“They loved each other,” Andy Patterson said, brushing away tears. “They really did.”

Since that day, the families, sanitation workers and county officials have been awaiting news about the exact cause of the fire. But so far, officials have not been able to pinpoint the source.

In Cal/OSHA’s listing of safety infractions issued last week against the sanitation districts and the engineering firm, investigators alluded only to a possible cause in one of its sanctions against the sanitation agency.

In the report to the county, investigators stated that Patterson, Miller and other workers had “no knowledge” that high levels of enriched oxygen were present in the area where the fire occurred.

Officials said the combustible mixture is used in the sewage treatment process, but it was not known whether a possible spark from Miller’s hammer could have ignited the gas, causing the fire.

Cal/OSHA investigators said in the report that the sanitation agency “failed to inform the contractor” of the potentially hazardous conditions.

Pascal and Ludwig was fined $11,150 for four safety code violations. Claremont attorney Greg Hafif, who is representing the families of the dead workers in the wrongful-death action against the sanitation agency, said responsibility for monitoring the potentially dangerous oxygen levels rested with the Orange County sanitation agency. He has informed the sanitation agency of the families’ intention to file a lawsuit.

Agency administrators have repeatedly declined to comment about the incident and the Cal/OSHA citations.

In his initial inquiry, Hafif said his investigators received contradictory information from sanitation administrators about some details about the incident. Hafif said he is pursuing leads that the agency might have withheld information about the incident and its possible causes from OSHA investigators.

“It wouldn’t surprise me (if information were withheld),” Supervisor Steiner said. “There has been a pattern of withholding information from the board of directors on a whole series of issues.”

Cal/OSHA investigators were not available for comment Friday.

Fountain Valley Councilman John Collins, another agency director, said that while he was concerned with the outcome of pending investigations, he was satisfied that agency administrators had provided board members with sufficient information.

“There is a tragedy here,” Collins said. “I don’t think there is anybody whose heart doesn’t go out to the families. But if there is a problem, we’ve been assured that it will be taken care of.”

Although the pending investigations and inquiries provide some hope for the family members, none has been able to stray far from the events of Feb. 1.

“These two men died,” Venezio said. “Somebody needs to come forward and tell how they died.”