Like thousands of Houston oilfield workers, you understand the job comes with serious dangers. When accidents happen, oilfield workers often suffer serious injuries that change their lives forever. Medical bills and lost wages create serious financial strain at a time when you should be focusing on recovery.
At Terry & Thweatt, our Houston oilfield injury lawyers have spent years representing injured workers throughout Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin. Our savvy legal team understands the physical, emotional, and financial toll oilfield injuries take on workers and their families.
Burns and Explosions
The oil and gas industry puts workers alongside highly flammable materials day in and day out. When fires rip through a Houston oil rig or tanks explode, the workers caught nearby can suffer horrific injuries.
Flash Fires and Thermal Burns
Flash fires tear through an oilfield without warning. One second, you're checking a pressure gauge. The next, you're surrounded by flames as leaked gas ignites from a stray spark. These aren't slow-building fires; they're instant infernos that give workers zero time to react, searing exposed skin and setting clothing ablaze in the split second before you even realize what's happening.
Chemical Burns
Roughnecks handle acids and industrial chemicals every day that can eat through metal. Imagine what happens when those same chemicals splash onto skin. Chemical burns keep destroying flesh until every last drop is washed away. Even then, these aggressive chemicals can seep deep into tissue, causing damage that continues long after the initial contact.
Electrical Burns
Contact with live electrical sources causes not only external burns but can send current through the body, damaging internal organs and tissues. Even low-voltage electrical contact can lead to serious injury when combined with the metal equipment commonly found throughout drilling sites.
Explosion Injuries
Beyond burns, explosions pack a triple threat: deadly pressure waves that rupture lungs and eardrums, shrapnel that tears through flesh like bullets, and structural failures that crush workers under tons of twisted metal.
OSHA counted more than 60 workers who were killed in explosions in the oil and gas industry between 2013 and 2017, leaving behind grieving families and shattered communities across Texas oilfields.
Traumatic Head and Brain Injuries
Oilfield workers face constant risk of head trauma from falling equipment, collisions, and falls from heights. The brain injuries that result can range from mild concussions to severe trauma with lifelong consequences.
Consider a derrickman working 90 feet above the drilling floor in Eagle Ford Shale. Even with a hard hat, the impact of being struck by a swinging pipe causes his brain to collide with the inside of the skull. This worker might experience:
- Memory problems and cognitive difficulties
- Personality changes and mood disorders
- Motor function impairment
- Speech and language problems
- Sensory processing issues
The Brain Injury Association of America reports that rehabilitation costs for severe traumatic brain injuries can exceed $1 million in the first year alone. TBI victims often require lengthy physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and psychological treatment.
Spinal Cord Damage and Back Injuries
The punishing physical demands of oilfield work wreck workers' backs. Hauling heavy equipment, climbing rigs, and twisting valves destroy spines over time. Many roughnecks take pain medication just to make it through their 12-hour shifts.
- Herniated discs. Physical strain can cause discs between vertebrae to rupture or bulge, pressing against nerves and causing intense pain.
- Spinal fractures. Falls from derricks or other heights can result in vertebral fractures. An equipment operator falling 10 feet onto a hard surface can suffer multiple compression fractures that require months of recovery.
- Complete spinal cord injuries. Paralysis can result when communication between the brain and body is severed. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation found that lifetime care costs for a 25-year-old with high tetraplegia can exceed $4.7 million.
Crush Injuries and Amputations
Heavy machinery dominates the Houston oil and gas industry, creating countless opportunities for oilfield accidents where limbs can be caught, crushed, or severed. These traumatic injuries often result in permanent disability and significant life changes.
A roughneck working near the rotary table can get his glove caught in the machinery. Within seconds, his hand is pulled into the equipment, crushing bones and severing tissue. The physical trauma is just the beginning. Amputees face:
- Prosthetic fittings and replacements
- Extensive physical therapy to learn new ways of performing tasks
- Phantom limb pain that can persist for years
- Psychological adjustment to altered body image
- Career changes when returning to physical labor becomes impossible
Chemical Exposure and Respiratory Damage
The invisible threat of toxic exposure represents one of the most insidious hazards in oilfield work. Daily contact with hazardous substances can lead to both acute poisoning and long-term illness.
- Hydrogen sulfide gas, present in many oil and gas formations, poses an immediate danger to workers. This colorless gas with a rotten egg smell can cause respiratory arrest and death at high concentrations.
- Hydraulic fracturing operations use silica sand, which creates respirable crystalline silica dust. This dust, when inhaled, causes silicosis, an incurable lung disease.
- Crude oil contains benzene and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that evaporate easily and can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Long-term exposure to these chemicals has been linked to blood disorders and cancer.
Unlike traumatic injuries, chemical exposures may not produce immediate symptoms but can lead to chronic conditions, including asthma, COPD, cancer, and neurological disorders.