The U-S Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened an investigation into Wednesday’s explosion at Sapp Bros. in West Point, Nebraska. Spokesperson Rhonda Burke says their job is to see if there were any safety violations.
Officials say crews were cleaning out propane tanks when the explosion happened. Two workers were critically burned and were airlifted to an Omaha hospital.
Burke says that facility had not been inspected for several years.
OSHA inspected five of the company’s operations in five years and three of those inspections resulted in citations in Omaha, Wyoming and Iowa. In 2006 Sapp Bros. was fined $6,375 for two serious safety violations in Cheyenne, Wyoming when a worker was killed using a cutting torch.
