Heroic Instinct Added to Toll From Gas Leak : Tragedy: Father of one of the victims says two oil field employees ignored their training to try to save his son. More safety inspectors join the investigation of the three deaths.

Speaking quietly, Cal Hoskins recalled Thursday how his son, Jason, had always wanted to follow his footsteps into the oil fields.

On Wednesday, Hoskins stood at a Ventura oil field where he had worked for 17 years and watched in agony as paramedics tried to save his son after a deadly leak of hydrogen sulfide gas.

“Someone asked me to hold the IV,” the father said. “That was all I could do for him.”

Jason Hoskins, 22, was one of three oil workers who died from the gas leak, an incident that has raised questions about the safety precautions in effect at the field about 10 miles north of Ventura.

The rules of the oil fields tell workers to run for cover when the rotten-egg stench of hydrogen sulfide emanates from a well. But in this case, the bond of a close-knit team proved stronger than the rules.

After Jason Hoskins collapsed in the well, two other workers jumped in to save him. But they too were overcome.

Four other men who tried to help were hospitalized with breathing problems, caused when the deadly gas deprived their bodies of oxygen.

To Cal Hoskins, a 25-year veteran of the oil fields, Wednesday’s tragedy represents a textbook case of heroic instinct and camaraderie overtaking safety procedures.

“Everyone wants to go and help their buddy because that’s just the way it is,” Hoskins said.

Even as he spoke, state inspectors were descending Thursday upon the oil field operated by Vintage Petroleum.

Inspectors were reviewing the company’s safety record and those of two other firms hired by Vintage to extract crude oil from an old well.

One of the firms, Pride Petroleum Services of Ventura, has had two fatal accidents in recent years and at least 10 other work-related injuries that have put workers into the hospital, according to state records.

The three workers who died Wednesday--Hoskins, Sean David Harris of Oxnard and Ronald Johnson of Oxnard--all worked for Pride.

“It’s clearly not a good record,” said John Duncan, an official with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or Cal/OSHA.

A manager at Pride Petroleum, a Houston-based firm, defended its safety record. Regional manager Michael Furrow also said the team’s supervisor had used the proper safety equipment, a hand-held monitor, to check Wednesday for the deadly gas and found none present.

Robert W. Cox, vice president of Vintage Petroleum, which leases the site, said the company had no reason to believe any deadly concentrations of hydrogen sulfide existed in the area and left other monitoring equipment unused in a nearby shed.

There did not appear to be any need to equip the workers with respirators to protect them from dangerous gases, he said.

Cal/OSHA investigators said Thursday that the safety laws are subject to interpretation.

“There’s no requirement that every employee always wear a respirator,” said Gene Glendenning, a Cal/OSHA safety expert. “You’re only required to wear a respirator when there’s an exposure or potential exposure. “

Officials at the state division of oil and gas said Thursday that the Rincon field, where the workers were extracting oil from a 10,000-foot-deep well, was known to have significant concentrations of hydrogen sulfide. But spokeswoman Pamela Morris said the oil well was not in a known danger zone.

Once the gas leak occurred, however, there was little question that the victims violated a key safety rule.

“They train us where, if worst comes to worst, you have to watch your co-worker die, or you’re going to die too,” said Don Gandy, a Pride worker whose roommate, Harris, died in Wednesday’s incident.

Harris, 26, had worked for the firm since 1986. He was close friends with the co-workers on his three-man team. “It was like their natural instinct to go get them,” Gandy said. “It went against all our training.”

Ronnie Johnson’s family too realized that he had given his life to save his friends. “When you work on a crew like that where everyone has to watch each other’s back, you get close,” said Reyes Gonzalez, whose stepdaughter was engaged to Johnson.

Johnson, 24, and Shannon O’Toole had dated for years before he proposed last Christmas Eve. The two have a 6-month-old son, Tyler.

Cal Hoskins knew something was terribly wrong when he got the call about a three-man crew injured at the site. Home on his day off, Hoskins ran out to his truck and raced up the Ventura Freeway to the oil field.

Before he could reach the crush of paramedics and firefighters, Toby Thrower, an old friend and his son’s supervisor, tried to stop him.

“Don’t go up there. You don’t want to go,” Thrower told him.

His son and two friends, Thrower told him, had been overcome by gas.

Water had begun gushing out of the well, so Jason Hoskins had gone into the cellar to shut off a valve. When he passed out, Johnson went down to try to save his friend. Harris followed.

“They were a team,” Hoskins said sadly. “They’d been together now for a year, and they were all tight. They were just kids.”

Correspondent Jeff McDonald and staff writer Jason Grant contributed to this story.