‘They’re back to making millions’: workers accuse US mill where five died in blast
Dallas Oosterhof worked at Didion Milling in Cambria, Wisconsin, for 25 years until May 2017, when he was working late finishing paperwork and the mill exploded due to a buildup of combustible dust. Covered in debris, he was able to crawl out with the help of light from a co-worker’s cellphone.
A corn processing company, Didion Milling is currently facing over $2.5m in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) fines related to workplace deaths and injuries, and a criminal prosecution by the US justice department. A final hearing before the trial in the criminal case is set for Friday.
“I’m alive, but five other guys died that night. I was friends with two of them. It changes your life big time, medically and psychologically,” said Oosterhof. “They knew this was a possibility that could happen. Osha fined them and wanted them to put these glass gates in, so if there was a fire it wouldn’t go any more than a little way up the pipe. But they said it was cheaper to pay the fines than to pay for the equipment to make it safe.”
Since the explosion, the site of the mill was rebuilt and is back to operating, but for Oosterhof and his family things will never be the same: he still suffers from debilitating medical issues he sustained from the explosion. His family has also been left bereft of his wages. Despite receiving disability compensation through social security, he said the long-term disability insurance he paid for through his job was denied.
“We don’t hear anything from them to see if you’re doing OK or anything. They sit there and preach about being a family-environment employer. The rich get richer, and the poor, the workers … I put 25 years in that place, I made them a lot of money. They’re back to making millions and they don’t look back to what happened to us.”
His wife, Rita Oosterhof, said less than a year after the incident her husband almost died in her bathroom, and she had had to revive him with CPR. Doctors said he had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in his brain as a result of the incident, noting he had head injuries from debris caused by the explosion.
“They kept telling me he was going to get better, and he kept getting worse,” she said.
For a while, Oosterhof said, it was causing him to have seizures. She or another family member were calling the paramedics so frequently, they came to know them on a first-name basis. He eventually required an operation to remove the AVM. Shortly after, doctors discovered a tumor in the back of his neck that he underwent radiation therapy to treat.
Currently, Oosterhof walks with the assistance of a crutch, and the left side of his body is partially paralyzed. Throughout all of his medical issues since the incident, Rita Oosterhof said Didion Milling never provided any support or assistance. She criticized the denial of his long-term disability claim through the company.
“We never got a dime from them,” she added. “How can they tell me he’s not disabled?”
Didion produces corn and ethanol products, processing over 86,000 bushels of corn daily, producing over 50m