May 16--One of the Seattle firefighters injured last year in the Greenwood natural-gas explosion is suing Puget Sound Energy over the blast, saying he's been dealing with health issues ever since.
The Seattle Times says 18-year veteran firefighter Jeff Markoff filed his suit Friday in state superior court, claiming he experiences "ongoing cognitive difficulties, severe headaches, hearing loss, disturbances such as recurring images after the explosion, memory loss" and other health issues.
Markoff, 50, says he was about 90 feet from the epicenter of the March 2016 alleyway explosion that leveled two buildings and damaged dozens more. He said the force of the blast knocked him unconscious as debris rained down over his head.
"There's increasing concern that the blast has caused some brain injury," Markoff’s lawyer, Darrell Cochran, told the Times.
Markoff was among nine firefighters injured when crews responded to a report of a natural-gas leak near Greenwood Avenue North and North 85th Street around 1:04 a.m. As they were trying to pinpoint the source of the leak, an explosion tore through a building at about 1:40 a.m.
All the firefighters were treated at a Seattle hospital and released the same day.
According to the Times, a state Utilities and Transportation Commission investigation found that employees of a contractor hired by PSE for pipeline maintenance did not properly cut and cap the gas line, which allowed gas to flow to a retired line.
In March, PSE reached a $1.5 million settlement with the UTC over the blast that also calls for PSE to complete "a comprehensive inspection and remediation program" of thousands of retired gas lines. If the utility does not comply, it will have to pay another $1.25 million.
Markoff told the Times he thinks PSE needs to be "held accountable so this doesn't happen again -- so guys that I work with don't have to face something like this."
In addition to compensation for his injuries, Markoff’s lawsuit also echoes the UTC settlement with a request that the court order PSE to inspect and remediate its gas pipelines "to protect the public from a grave harm."
"The most important part of the lawsuit is to make sure Puget Sound Energy has no choice but to do a comprehensive analysis of its pipelines, and particularly its abandoned pipelines to make sure they've been capped and cut off and are no danger to the public," Cochran told the Times.
