Gettin' The Heck Out of Dodge Knoxtown

More Forensic Injuneering Ensues...


I was busy this past weekend getting ready to travel to Atlanta this week to do a bunch of business stuff, thus the light posting the past half week.

First and foremost I have to attend a "pre-arbitration" meeting with a bunch of pointy headed lawyers to explain some of the stuff we've been writing and talking about on this steam accident investigation for the past nearly three years.

I have some advise for you if you are ever injured in an industrial or other workplace accident.

GO AHEAD AND DIE EARLY IF YOU NEED TO DIE...

...because the lawyers and OSHA and the Department of Labor will make you wait so long to get your financial settlement that you will wish you were dead if you really need the money to pay bills.

Seriously, THREE YEARS OF INVESTIGATION...and three and one half years after the accident and we're still fooling around explaining the obvious.

Someone screwed up a design/installation of some fairly simple stuff and as a result something exploded (I have pictures) and someone was badly burned in the process, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and expert testimony later we're still basically saying:

Shazam...it went and blowed up and the guy standing beside it got burned...

It makes me crazy sometimes, and what is even more frustrating is I'm probably the least credentialed and lowest paid guy at most of these events and I know more about what I'm looking at than most if not all.

There are firms out there that investigate everything from car wrecks to airplane crashes to baby bed disasters and washing machine fires, and they show up at an accident scene claiming to know everything about anything.

Sort of like the guy they called "The Professor" on the TV show "Gilligan's Island"...except most of these oafs are more like Mr. Howell or even Gilligan than they are "The Professor."

On the other hand, my Partner and I don't do anything but steam plant accidents and after spending twenty plus years looking at smoldering broken steel and cast iron tanks and pipes we know a thing or two about what's going on and the possibilities of how things went wrong.

So any way, Travel on Tuesday afternoon and Forensics on Wednesday Morning and possibly a meeting or two with a couple of clients on Thursday and Friday, and then a weekend visit with some family, and as usual Blogging will be hit or miss based on my mental attitude and the available Internet connections.