Gas Leak Near Ventura Kills 3 Oil Workers

Three workers were killed and four others injured, two critically, after inhaling fumes from a hydrogen sulfide gas leak near an oil production plant north of Ventura on Wednesday, authorities said.

The 12:07 p.m. gas leak occurred near Vintage Petroleum’s plant just off U.S. 101 as workers were in the process of redrilling an old oil well, fire officials said.

Workers were in a pit injecting water into a steel pipe to force oil to the surface, a standard drilling procedure, at the time of the accident, said Joe Luna, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman.

When the men removed their nozzles, water started gushing out of the ground, releasing a small concentration of hydrogen sulfide fumes. The men were immediately overcome by the gas, which sent three of them into cardiac arrest, while the other four experienced respiratory problems, Luna said.

Assistant Fire Chief Dave Festerling said the colorless gas, a natural component of crude oil that smells like rotten eggs, can be absorbed so rapidly into the bloodstream that it sometimes can be fatal by the time a person smells it.

“In the right concentration, you can be very dead in one breath,” Festerling said, noting that the workers apparently had not been wearing gas masks.

Firefighters arriving at the scene used electronic sensors to measure the toxic fumes in the air, and found levels low enough to treat the injured workers at the scene, Luna said. Because the gas had quickly dissipated, there was no evacuation of the area.

One man was pronounced dead at the scene and two others died at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura. Officials at the hospital said doctors worked on the two men for an hour, but that neither regained a pulse.

The dead were identified as Sean David Harris, 26, of Oxnard, Jason Hoskins, 22, of Ventura, and Ronald Johnson, 24, of Oxnard, who was pronounced dead at the scene. All worked for Pride Petroleum Services of Ventura.

The injured workers were initially taken to Ventura County Medical Center, but two were transferred to Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo and two to Los Robles Medical Center in Thousand Oaks. Both hospitals are equipped with hyperbaric chambers, which deliver high doses of oxygen.

In critical condition late Wednesday were Jerry Walker, 41, of Bakersfield, and Toby Thrower, 55, of Oak View. Listed in fair condition were Derek Abbott, 18, of Oak View, and Jeff Sandoval, 34, of Bakersfield.

“The (hyperbaric) chambers are pressurized with 100% oxygen, which will detoxify all the inert gases in their tissue,” said Dr. J. B. Wilmeth at Los Robles.

All the dead and injured workers were employees of independent contracting firms hired by Vintage Petroleum to do the drilling, officials said. Pride Petroleum and Schlumberger Well Services, also of Ventura, are the two independent contractors.

Inspectors from Cal/OSHA were sent to the scene to investigate the circumstances of the leak, said John Duncan, a spokesman for the California Department of Industrial Relations.

Cal/OSHA, the state agency that oversees worker safety regulations, requires that firms drilling in areas known to contain toxic vapors conduct constant monitoring of the gases or chemicals, said Gene Glendenning, a Fresno-area manager for Cal/OSHA and an expert in oil safety.

Monitoring is usually done with electronic devices. The monitors sound an alarm before a dangerous concentration of gas is reached, Glendenning said.

The devices would be able to inform the companies if toxic concentrations are common and, consequently, if respiratory equipment is needed. Otherwise Cal/OSHA does not require respiratory equipment unless there has been a documented problem.

“If they were in an area known to have hydrogen sulfide, they should have been monitoring the site,” Glendenning said. “The firms are expected to do it. They are legally required to test that employees are not being overexposed.”

It was not clear whether monitoring equipment was in use at the site. Paul Roden, a production foreman at Vintage Petroleum, said, “We’re not positive of the cause” of the fatal incident. “It’s still under investigation, “ he said.

Glendenning said hydrogen sulfide is dangerous because the smell disappears after a few seconds, but the gas remains. “People smell the rotten egg smell, then they think it’s gone away, but it is growing in concentration,” he said.

It paralyzes the respiratory system in higher concentrations, and breathing stops, he said.

Refineries regularly remove hydrogen sulfide from oil, but sometimes it happens naturally, said Scott Lynn, a professor of chemical engineering at UC Berkeley.

“Hydrogen sulfide is extremely toxic, comparable in toxicity to hydrogen cyanide,” Lynn said. “But because you can smell it in low concentrations, you can often detect it early on.”

Hydrogen sulfide fumes were blamed in 1991 for the death of a worker at a Los Angeles County paper recycling plant. Earlier this summer, Domtar Gypson Inc. agreed to pay $800,000 in fines as a result of that death at its plant in Vernon.

Diluted concentrations of the gas have been detected in recent months in the Los Angeles subway system. Transit and health officials have recommended sensors in the stations to give passengers an early warning if the levels become dangerous. Even at the low 9.9 p.p.m. detected in the subway, health officials said the gas could cause headaches, nausea and eye irritation.

Staff writer Miguel Bustillo and correspondents Jeff McDonald and Julie Fields contributed to this story.