CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — For the first time, a former employee of I. Schumann & Company shared his story after a steam explosion killed a team member and injured 13 others.
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“It's been six or seven months now, and you know it still feels like it happened yesterday; none of us have ever had to deal with something like this,” said Tom Nagel, former I. Schumann & Co warehouse manager.
This week OSHA found the foundry was at fault and failed to protect its workers.
Nagel recalled Feb. 20 as a nightmare.
“Nobody walked in there thinking that this was going to be their last day,” Nagel said.
His 21-year-old son, Landon, was also working at the foundry at the time.
“I still have dreams about it, about the explosion, and how much worse it could have been knowing my son was on the other side of the wall before the explosion hit,” Nagel said.
Nagel said it was a typical Monday until he heard and felt the boom. Smoke started to fill his office.
“There was still debris falling, and at that point, I didn’t know how severe the explosion was,” Nagel said. “My focus was calling my son to see where he was at.”
Nagel described the scene as a war zone.
“People were coming out bloody,” Nagel said. “One of the hourly guys had to have help his leg was almost detached.”
He said there was no order or procedures in place.
“We were just trying to figure out who was still in the building; nobody knew,” Nagel said. “There was no disaster drill or protocol. We had never practiced anything like this.”
Nagel managed to find his son, but one of his dearest friends and co-workers of nearly 18 years, Steve Mullins, was still missing.
“We saw somebody coming out on a stretcher with a blanket on their head, and we kind of figured it was Steve,” Nagel said. “And that’s when it kind of hit, Landon and me, that we’ve lost a really close friend.”
46-year-old Mullins died in the explosion. He leaves behind his wife, Danielle and two kids. Mullins worked in maintenance at I. Schumann & Co for over 30 years.
“He was the ultimate friend,” Nagel said. “He really cared about everybody. He cared about Schumann, and it’s tragic that he’s not here anymore.”
An OSHA investigation found I. Schumann & Co was at fault for failing to protect its workers. OSHA investigators said the explosion happened when employees were inspecting a water leak in a furnace and did not have lockout or evacuation orders in place.
Nagel said he agrees with OSHA and said three to four months leading up to the explosion, furnaces were getting shut off almost once a week because of leakage issues.
“It is upsetting,” Nagel said. “We didn’t have any protocol for a disaster like this.”
Over the last six months, Nagel has been navigating his new normal of being unemployed and grieving a close friend. Nagel said him and his co-workers were fired from I. Schumann & Co shortly after the explosion. The facility is still not operational. He doesn't know if he can ever resume work at another foundry.
“I can’t say never, but I don't right now,” Nagel said.
Nagel said he wants to see his former company held accountable and feels the incident was preventable. Until then, his final moments with Mullins continue to replay in his mind.
“To lose somebody like that, to lose a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a brother-in-law, an uncle, he was all these to his family, and to not have him here anymore, it hurts,” Nagel said. “It still hurts. There’s not a day; there’s literally not a day, an hour, that goes by during the day where I don't think about him and his family and what they lost.
