By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – A spokesman for Mollenburg-Betz on Wednesday morning identified the two men involved in Tuesday's explosion at the chemical plant on River Road in Tonawanada.
57-year-old Richard Folaron of South Wales died at the scene. 50-year-old William Freeburg of Angola, an employee with the company for 25-years, suffered burns to his face and neck and is still hospitalized at the Erie County Medical Center. His condition is not critical.
Folaron, who was a 15-year employee of the mechanical contracting company, leaves behind a wife and four children.
"Rich was a good man, well-respected and well-liked by everyone here at Mollenburg- Betz," said James Camarre, chief financial officer and vice president of finance with Mollenburg-Betz.
Camarre said the accident hit everyone at the 100 year-old, close-knit company very hard. He said they are doing everything they can for the families and making grief counseling available for all 150 of their employees.
He said both men were highly-skilled welders and that safety is a top priority at Mollenburg-Betz. He said that is one reason Dupont contracts them to work there.
"When you go to a Dupont site they typically hold you to the highest standards of safety. In this area they're one of the hardest, if not the hardest, plant to get into to perform work," said Camarre. "They have a stringent screening process for their contractors and they have stringent safety procedures for everyone on site. So, we did assume that there wouldn't be issues yesterday."
Dupont officials on Wednesday afternoon released the following statement:
At approximately 10:45 a.m. today [Tuesaday] there was an incident in at the DuPont Yerkes plant.
We are deeply saddened that the incident resulted in the fatal injury of worker at the Yerkes site who was employed by Mollenberg-Betz, a mechanical contractor. The name of the fatally injured employee has not been released pending notification of their family. Another worker was injured in the incident and has been transported to a local hospital.
The incident involved an empty tank that had been taken out of service and was undergoing maintenance work. While workers were welding equipment connected to the tank, an explosion took place which resulted in the injuries. The incident was limited to the equipment that was being worked on and the process involved has been shut down. At this point we do not believe there was any hazardous material released to the environment. The site was not evacuated, and all other personnel on the site have been accounted for.
Town of Tonawanda Police and Fire Department responded to the plant and are currently investigating the incident. DuPont is cooperating fully with this investigation and we are conducting our own investigation to determine the cause of the incident.