3 Killed, 4 Injured in Gas Leak : Accident: Workers are overcome by toxic hydrogen sulfide fumes during routine drilling procedure at an oil facility north of Ventura.

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

The 12:07 p.m. gas leak occurred at Vintage Petroleum’s oil production plant in the foothills of Rincon Mountain in Seacliff, just off the Ventura Freeway, as workers were in the process of redrilling an old oil well, fire officials said.

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

When the men removed their nozzles, water started gushing out of the ground, releasing a small concentration of hydrogen sulfide fumes, Luna said. 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 byproduct of crude oil that smells like rotten eggs, can be absorbed so rapidly into the blood stream that it is sometimes 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 had apparently 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 later at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura. Officials at the hospital said doctors worked on the two men for an hour, but that they never regained a pulse.

The dead and injured workers were employees of independent contracting firms hired by Tulsa, Okla.-based Vintage Petroleum to do the drilling, officials said. Pride Petroleum Services and Schlumberger Well Services, both of Ventura, are the two contractors.

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.

The other four critically injured workers were initially taken by helicopter to Ventura County Medical Center, but two were transferred to St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo and two to Los Robles Medical Center in Thousand Oaks. Both hospitals are equipped with hyperbaric chambers, pressurized cylinders that allow doctors to administer pure doses of oxygen.

“The chambers are pressurized with 100% oxygen, which will detoxify all the inert gases in their tissue,” said Dr. J. B. Wilmeth, director of the hyperbaric unit at Los Robles. “It displaces the gases instantly.”

Normally, it takes about 5 1/2 hours to reduce half of the gases in the victim’s system, he said. But with the hyperbaric chamber, that time can be reduced to about 24 minutes.

One victim at Los Robles, identified as Derek Abbott, 18, of Oak View, was listed in fair condition late Wednesday. The other victim at that hospital, identified as Jerry Walker, 41, of Bakersfield, was also in fair condition, a Los Robles spokeswoman said.

Abbott had worked for Pride Petroleum Services about six weeks, said his stepfather, George Farmer. He grew up in Oak View and recently graduated from Ventura High School.

Farmer said his stepson had enjoyed his brief work in the oil fields.

“He loved it,” Farmer said. “He just wanted to have a steady job. He’s got a new truck and all that.”

Farmer said his stepson was a little disoriented, but in a good mood when he arrived at the Ventura County Medical Center emergency room. After being transferred to Los Robles, his condition improved throughout the day.

“His mother just called and said he’s doing great,” Farmer said late Wednesday. “He’s one of the lucky ones.”

Officials at St. John’s said late Wednesday that the condition of the two patients there was improving. Jeff Sandoval, 34, of Bakersfield was in fair condition and was no longer using the hospital’s hyperbaric chamber. Toby Thrower, 55, of Oak View was “responding well to treatment,” a hospital spokesman said, but was listed in serious condition in the intensive care unit.

Inspectors from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or Cal-OSHA, were immediately sent to the accident scene to investigate the circumstances of the toxic gas leak, said John Duncan, a spokesman for the California Department of Industrial Relations.

“It’s a horrible scene,” said Larry Bates, Vintage Petroleum’s California operations manager. “We’re still trying to figure out what happened.”

The Vintage Petroleum plant is an oil lease of hundreds of acres in Seacliff, about 10 miles north of Ventura. The plant, which employees about a dozen workers and another two dozen contract employees, produces about 1,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

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 using electronic devices. The monitors sound off 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 Wednesday if monitoring was being conducted at the site. Paul Roden, a production foreman for Vintage Petroleum, said the company did not know whether the workers had been wearing protective gear at the time of the accident. He said workers are required to wear safety equipment under certain circumstances, but was unsure if they had done so in this case.

“We’re not positive of the cause,” Roden said of the gas leak. “It’s still under investigation.”

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.”

It paralyses the respiratory system in higher concentrations, he said.

Crude oil commonly has sulfur in it, and oil can release hydrogen sulfide. Refineries regularly remove hydrogen sulfide from oil, but sometimes it escapes naturally, said Scott Lynn, a professor of chemical engineering at UC Berkeley.

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

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 also 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 parts per million detected in the subway, health officials said the gas could cause headaches, nausea and eye irritation.

Staff writers Dwayne Bray, Miguel Bustillo and Christina Lima contributed to this story. Correspondents Jeff McDonald, Julie Fields and Scott Hadly also reported.

Gas Leak Fatalities

Toxic fumes killed three people and injured four others Wednesday at an oil production plant north of Ventura. Concentrated hydrogen sulfide can cause instant death.

Hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide is a colorless, extremely poisonous gas that has the odor of rotten eggs. It is a byproduct of crude oil and can be released into the air during drilling for petroleum. It is also used in the manufacturing of chemicals.

Effects: An irritant and asphyxiant, it is highly irritating to eyes and mucous membranes when inhaled.

* Low concentration: (20-150 parts per million) causes irritation of eyes; slightly higher concentration may cause irritation of upper respiratory tract. If exposure is prolonged, pulmonary edema may result.

* Higher concentration: Slightly higher concentration may cause irritation of upper respiratory tract, and if exposure is prolonged, pulmonary edema may result. A 30-minute exposure to 500 p.p.m. results in headache, dizziness, staggering gait, diarrhea, followed by bronchitis or bronchopneumonia.

* Very high concentration: Very high amounts paralyze the nervous system. Exposures of 800 to 1,000 p.p.m. may be fatal in 30 minutes; high concentrations are instantly fatal.

How Death Can Result

As long as the exposure level is under 700 p.p.m., the blood can convert the gas into a harmless compound. At concentrations above 700 p.p.m., the body can’t cope with the excess gas, which reaches the brain and causes breathing to stop. Suffocation occurs in minutes, unless victim is removed and given artificial respiration.

Sources: Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials; Work is Dangerous to Your Health; A Handbook of Health Hazards in the Workplace and What You Can Do About Them