A fourth person has died from injuries suffered in a natural-gas explosion that tore through a North Carolina Slim Jim plant five months ago, a hospital spokesman said yesterday.
Curtis Ray Poppe, 55, died Thursday at the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center in Chapel Hill, spokesman Tom Hughes said. An obituary posted by a Hickory funeral home said that Poppe's family greeted friends there Sunday.
Four critically burned victims were among the 71 who required hospital treatment after the explosion in June at the ConAgra Foods Inc. plant in Garner, said Don Holmstrom, the lead investigator with the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
More than 200 people were working in the plant when the explosion in the packaging area caused part of the roof to collapse. Three of those killed as a result of the blast were hit by debris or crushed when part of the building collapsed.
Poppe worked for Energy Systems Analysts Inc., a Hickory company hired to install a water heater.
Two federal agencies have blamed natural gas for the explosion. The Chemical Safety Board said that contractors installing the water heater likely vented natural gas inside the building before the explosion as they purged a gas line. Officials said the gas should be vented outside.
David Stradley, a Raleigh lawyer representing injured ConAgra employees in a lawsuit against Energy Systems and Curtis Poppe, said that an attorney for the company called him last week to say that Poppe had died.
A listed telephone number for Poppe in Hickory has been disconnected. Family members in North Carolina and Wisconsin, where Poppe was born, did not return calls asking for comment.
ConAgra resumed diminished production at its Garner plant in July after paying plant workers' wages for more than a month after the explosion. The company said in September that it would lay off about 300 of the factory's 750 remaining workers.
Federal officials expect the full investigation of the ConAgra plant explosion to be finished in 2010.
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