Record-Setting Burn Injury Settlement: Dwayne’s Story

Got called in work that day, it was the oil plant. We had a blowout. We got it turned off. And then they said, “put some boards across the holes so we can get a measurement for the pipe,” and I remember saying, we might need to pump that hole down. “Well, we’ll do that after we get done.” But we should’ve finished out the right proper steps by doing what I was asking to do. It was taking shortcuts.

I went to put the board across the hole. Ground just gave out from under me, where I fell in it and it was pretty hot. Hot water, it’s called heat medium. And it’s anywhere from 400 to 500 degrees. You know, they try to keep it at a certain temp. Went to try to climb out, didn’t realize how hot it was, I just couldn’t say nothing. It’s just like it just locked you up and all you knew is just get out. I was in there for about 20 seconds, so it was a mess.

My left leg—all the way down, some in my hips, basically under my belly button right there. The guy, Chris, he pulled me out. And then once I came out, then in the pain, you know, screaming and all that stuff. Blacked out. They tried to Life Flight me, the storm was too bad. They had to drive me down there, so it was 3.5 hours before they finally was able to do something to me to get me all the pain and everything that was going through it.

I was sitting at home, get a knock on the front door, Dwayne had a very bad accident. We weren’t sure if he was going to make it or not, but we just had to get down there as soon as possible. I think two and a half minutes. I really don’t know, it was all a blur. I know for months—it was sure enough a blur. I didn’t know how my life was even going to be. I had to get my parents to come help me kind of sort some things out. My brain was all over the place.

We had to figure out what things were going to look like long term. You know, they was mentioning they may have to let you go or something, you know, so you just got to look out for your family. You got to do the right thing. Buddy of mine knew of y’all and told me that y’all do a good job, and they’ll take care of you on that. Let me try that because I wanted to bring it to them to keep from somebody else getting hurt. We just felt like it was what the Lord was leading us to do.

This is going to be a long journey. Eric was the one who talked to me on that one, and he made a lot of sense. I’m very pleased. We were very supported. We felt like cared for us. We felt very very blessed and very thankful for the outcome.

Call Zehl and Associates, because they provide you with what you need and y’all always come through. They had done everything they needed to do to get me back on track where I needed to be. You know, they’ll explain everything and you’ll be you’ll be fine, I promise you.