By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news
CHEHALIS – An Adna native was seriously injured in a fiery explosion at a dormant oil well in central Texas.
Cameron McDonald, 25, is in a Houston hospital, with several broken bones and severe burns to his face, arm and legs, his Uncle Jim Harris said today.
[1]Cameron McDonald
“He doesn’t remember anything at all,” Harris said. “He still doesn’t know why he’s in the hospital.”
It happened on Wednesday at a work site in New Baden, Texas, about 100 miles northeast of Austin, Harris said.
He got a phone call from his sister, who flew down yesterday to be with her son, he said.
Harris has been scouring the news to find out what happened and said he learned his nephew was using a cutting torch [2] to remove bolts from a catwalk above a 12,000 gallon storage tank.
Harris said he understands McDonald was wearing a harness and thrown clear, but then slammed face first into the hot metal of the tank. News accounts say he was critical when transported and describe pillars of smoke visible for miles.
The incident is under investigation by Texas regulatory authorities.
Harris said his nephew only recently took the out of state job with a company that dismantled well sites, as he understood it. Before that, he worked construction locally, he said.
“Cameron, he just went down there in December,” he said. “He decided he was going to go down there and get some of that big oil money and took off.”
Harris got the call from his sister about 2:30 p.m. the day it happened, shortly after his nephew’s employer called his sister, Janie Harris, also of Adna.
They’ve been keeping in close contact. She texted him yesterday with an update, he said.
She told him her son is pretty upset.
“They won’t let him see his face or the news yet,” Janie Harris texted her brother. “Both his eyes are black, all his teeth are gone. But he’s alive. Thank God he’s tough.”
He’s had some skin grafts, Harris said, but it’s not clear how long he might be hospitalized.
Today, his nephew was able to walk from his bed to the bathroom, a good sign, Harris said.
“I hope he pulls through, he’s burned pretty bad,” he said.