According to a 2010 civil case alleging injury, loss of income and wrongful termination, Sergei Yelgin once sought more than $1 million in damages from his former employer after a 2008 oil tank explosion, which he claimed , left him with double vision, headaches and more. wound. In his statement, Yelgin claimed that “under pressure from the company,” he returned to work after recovering at home for about three weeks, “despite the fact that he was not physically fit” to do so. None of the allegations were proven in court, as Eastway and Yelgin mutually agreed to have the case dismissed nine months after he filed his lawsuit. Miryam Gorelashvili, the lawyer who represented Yelgin pro-bono because she said he was “broken and injured,” told CBC the case was dismissed because of a provision of Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Act. The law restricts workers from suing certain employers for workplace injuries that should be covered by the provincial workers’ compensation board (WSIB). Under Ontario law, builders like Eastway are required to sign up for WSIB coverage. Yelgin declined to be interviewed about his failed civil suit. He briefed CBC News on the 2008 explosion during one of Ottawa’s deadliest industrial incidents earlier in the year. Five employees — Rick Bastien, Etienne Mabiala, Danny Beale, Kayla Ferguson and Russell McLellan — were killed at the tanker manufacturer’s site on Merivale Road after an explosion and fire on January 13. A sixth employee, Matt Kearney, succumbed to his injuries in hospital the following day. Clockwise from top left: Matt Kearney, Etienne Mabiala, Danny Beale, Rick Bastien, Russell McLellan and Kayla Ferguson were killed in an explosion and fire Jan. 13, 2022, at Eastway Tank, Pump and Meter Ltd., a tanker truck manufacturer in south Ottawa. (Photos submitted) Several agencies led by the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office continue to investigate the 2022 explosion. The province’s Ministry of Labor faces a one-year general deadline to file any safety-related charges. Eastway has not responded to CBC’s repeated requests for comment. Walter Langley, the lawyer who represented the company in the 2010 civil case, said he could not recall the matter.

History of workplace safety concerns

Details from Yelgin’s case add to a growing list of alleged safety lapses reported by former Eastway workers in the years before the January explosion. CBC spoke to three former employees earlier this year about their concerns, which ranged from improper storage of flammable chemicals to welding near “hot trucks” — tankers that still contained fuel or flammable residue. In his claim, Yelgin said he was exiting a fuel tanker he was welding on in August 2008 when he was thrown from an explosion and hit in the face by debris. The claim alleged that the fuel tanker was not steamed and was not tested “adequately or at all”. “Yelgin asked about the oil tank and the manager told him that the tank [had] was steamed and tested and therefore safe to process,” according to the claim statement. Yelgin said he used a “sniffer” device to check for signs of flammable residue on the tanker and got a “non-explosive” reading. However, he claimed that the equipment was not kept in good working order. The explosion dislodged bulkheads inside the tanker, threw Yelgin and created debris that shattered his welding helmet, leaving him with side effects he said lingered more than a year after the incident, according to the plaintiff’s claim. The claim listed side effects such as partial vision loss, nausea, difficulty breathing and food smelling like burnt plastic.

“Don’t call the ambulance”

Ottawa Fire Department call logs obtained by the CBC show firefighters responded to a call on Eastway on Aug. 5, 2008, after a compressed air tank exploded while a welder was working inside a fuel tanker.
Another Eastway employee who worked nearby recalled hearing a loud explosion. He said Yelgin appeared to be unconscious when other workers first pulled him from the tanker. CBC News agreed not to name the employee for fear of retaliation for speaking out.
The employee said he remembered someone saying, “Don’t call the ambulance,” and later, once Yelgin woke up, someone offered to drive Yelgin home. He claimed the company “didn’t want to make a big report”. An ambulance arrived and took Yelgin to a hospital with non-life-threatening facial injuries, but it’s unclear who made the call to paramedics as specific caller ID is no longer available, according to the agency. of Paramedics of Ottawa. The Department of Labor said it was aware of the 2008 explosion, but would not confirm whether Eastway reported the incident, citing the ongoing investigation into this year’s explosion. January’s Eastway Tank explosion became Ottawa’s deadliest workplace incident in decades. (David McEvoy/Bytown Fire Brigade) Yelgin claimed that Eastway pressured him to return to work soon after. “His supervisor called him home every day asking him to return to work,” the plaintiff’s claim said. “The company even offered to provide Mr. Yelgin with transportation to and from work.” According to the colleague, when Yelgin returned to work after the explosion, he complained of impaired vision. By December 2008, Yelgin alleged that the company “improperly terminated his employment without lawful cause in a flagrant and abusive manner.”

Eastway Tank explosion victim’s widow reacts to news of earlier lawsuit

Louise Martel, whose partner Rick Bastien died in the Eastway Tank explosion, says that if she had heard about dangerous working conditions at Eastway Tank, such as those alleged by a former employee, she would have insisted Bastien quit.

“Revolving door” of employees

The witness to the 2008 explosion, who worked at Eastway for years, said workers were performing potentially dangerous tasks without proper safety training from the company. He said he was sometimes asked to work on hot trucks. “I didn’t want to do it. And they said, ‘No, no, you have to do it.’ They put pressure on you,” he said. If workers refused to do work they felt was unsafe, they were eventually let go, he said, contributing to a “revolving door” at Eastway. Expediency trumped safety, the official added. “Sometimes [a] company or truck owner [would say], ‘I need it now.’ So [Eastway] he didn’t want to spend the money on steam,” he said. The mementos left behind by loved ones who lost their lives in the January blast have remained at the Eastway Tank site since last Wednesday. (Radio Canada) In an earlier statement to CBC News, Eastway president and owner Neil Greene called previous allegations of unsafe working conditions “baseless.” “Eastway Tank has always worked to maintain the highest safety standards. We are working closely with investigators and fully cooperating to understand what happened,” Greene said in January. The Department of Labor previously said it identified issues at Eastway related to ventilation, safety and training in welding and hazardous chemical exposures in June 2017 — issues the department said were addressed in a timely manner. Most recently, the ministry identified an unspecified safety issue at Eastway after the blast, which it declined to elaborate on, again citing the ongoing investigation.

“Sad Case”

Gorelashvili said she lost touch with Yelgin after the 2010 civil suit was dismissed. “He looked lost,” she said. “It’s a sad case for him as I couldn’t help.” But she said his experience partly inspired her to specialize in personal injury law. It is unclear whether Yelgin received WSIB benefits. He did not respond to CBC’s numerous attempts to contact him after a few brief initial email exchanges dating back to the 2008 incident. WSIB’s own records show that Eastway filed a claim four days after the explosion, but Gorelashvili could not recall whether Yelgin received any payment or services as a result.
Regardless, companies required to participate in the compensation board’s program are exempt from individual liability for incident costs, which is why Yelgin’s civil suit was dismissed.