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1 Dead, 3 Injured In Campbell Industrial Explosion

Welder Thrown 100 Feet By Blast

POSTED: 2:51 pm HST October 7, 2008
UPDATED: 9:56 am HST October 8, 2008

An explosion at Campbell Industrial Park left one man dead and three others injured Tuesday afternoon, an Emergency Medical Services spokesman said.

Witnesses said the worker was welding on a tank when it exploded at about 1:30 p.m. at a business on Komohana Street. It caused the victim to fly 50 to 60 feet in the air, they said. He landed next door at the company Bonded Materials.

The man killed in the blast was in his early 20s, EMS spokesman Bryan Cheplic said. The three other victims were last reported in stable condition.

"It was just one big fireball, that's all I saw was fire and stuff flying," eye witness Randall Ikuta said.

Randall Okuda was doing demolition work nearby when he heard and saw a blast at Phillip Services Hawaii. He and others scrambled to save themselves.

"We just had to get away, that's all. Because it happened so fast, we couldn't really do nothing," Okuda said.

The men worked for PSC Phillips Services Hawaii, officials said.

"Our companies arrived -- they didn't see the fire, they just saw the results of the explosion and the injured people. They immediately began treating and tried to make certain that they got all the people involved," Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Terry Seelig said.

The Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health Administration will be working together with fire investigators to determine what caused the blast.
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