Fire at cannabis facility badly hurts 2 workers
Business’s license pulled; explosion in 2015 also caused injuries plus fines, lawsuits
State, local and federal officials are investigating the cause of a fire Thursday afternoon that severely injured two employees at New MexiCann Natural Medicine and prompted state officials to suspend the Santa Fe-based company’s license to produce medical cannabis products.
Two men working at the company’s main campus on San Mateo Lane when the fire ignited were taken initially to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center with burns to their heads and torsos, said Capt. Jimmy Vigil of the investigations division of the State Fire Marshal’s Office. The injured men later were flown by helicopter to a Denver burn center.
One man was in “serious but stable” condition Friday evening, the Fire Marshal’s Office said, while the other man was in critical condition.
Vigil said the state fire marshal, the state Department of Health, the Santa Fe Fire Department, and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration are jointly investigating the blaze.
“We’re trying to figure out what went wrong,” he said.
Greg Gurulé, a spokesman with the Santa Fe Police Department, said an explosion at the New MexiCann facility was reported around 12:40 p.m. Thursday. He said he had no further information.
“Preliminary reports from the Santa Fe Fire Department indicate the explosion occurred in the immediate vicinity of New Mexicann’s chemical extraction equipment,” the state Department of Health said in a statement.
The agency suspended the company’s medical cannabis production license Thursday evening, according to spokesman David Morgan.
New MexiCann’s marketing director, Jaylene Kost, declined to comment Friday.
The San Mateo Lane site is New MexiCann’s headquarters, greenhouse, commercial kitchen and production facility. The company also operates several medical cannabis dispensaries in Northern New Mexico.
This is the second explosion at the facility. A blast in 2015 left two New MexiCann employees severely burned. At the time, officials said they suspected a chemical extraction process involving butane went awry in a lab.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration found a dozen serious health and safety violations at the site following an eight-month investigation, according to news reports. The agency fined the company $13,500.
One of the injured workers also filed a lawsuit against the company in 2017. Nick Montoya was rushed to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center after the explosion and then was airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. He said in his complaint that he suffered third-degree burns to a high percentage of his body, had a prolonged stay in an intensive care unit and needed multiple skin grafts after the explosion.
Montoya alleged in the complaint he did not have the proper clearances, training, equipment or emergency protocols to be performing the dangerous extraction procedure he was asked to perform.
Another worker, Mark Aaron Smith, had filed a similar complaint against New MexiCann about a year earlier.
It’s unclear from online court records exactly how the two cases — which eventually were consolidated — were resolved. Records indicate the case was resolved by a “split decision,” but documents also say Montoya and Smith agreed to dismiss their complaints in June 2019, which often means the parties in a civil complaint have reached an outof-court settlement.