Burned worker ‘just started to run’

Keith Paul

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001 | 9:55 a.m.

Samuel Pagdilao didn't see or hear the explosion Monday at the model rocket plant where he was working. He just saw people running out of the building.

"I saw my brother-in-law run by and saw the smoke and just started to run," Samuel Pagdilao said through an interpreter. "I never saw what happened."

Pagdilao ran from AeroTech Inc., at 1955 S. Palm St., as the fire reacted to two combustible chemicals -- ammonium perchlorate and magnesium -- causing explosions and a blaze that burned through Monday and into Tuesday afternoon.

Pagdilao, 53, said he was drilling into the solid propellant, finishing a model rocket fuel motor, when the people around him started to flee the building. Pagdilao said he started to run for the door when something fell on him. The smoke was so dense that he couldn't see.

"I got back up and ran out," he said. "I was on fire."

Pagdilao had burns on his face, neck, arms and hands. He was listed in good condition at University Medical Center. White bandages covered his burns, but a large patch of burned skin on the right side of his face was visible. His fingers also were bandaged as he rested in a hospital bed.

Two of his co-workers, 24-year-old Virgilio Yalapan and 65-year-old Avelino Corpuz, were in critical condition. Pagdilao knew they were in a hospital room down the hall, but he hasn't been told how badly they were injured.

Pagdilao said he and others were drilling, and the noise from the work drowned out any sign of trouble with the nearby machine used to produce the solid propellant for the model rockets. It was that machine that sparked and started the fire, Clark County Fire Department officials said.

Pagdilao held his hands about five feet apart to show how close he was to the machine. The two more seriously injured workers were even closer, he said. There were four workers in the room with the machine; the fourth was able to escape uninjured.

The workers were told about the volatility of the chemicals, but until Monday's fire Pagdilao said he didn't worry about the potential danger. He also had never worked with the model rocket propellants before starting work at AeroTech in 1997.

"I wasn't scared before (Monday), but now I am," he said.

Asked if he would return to doing the same work, Pagdilao just shrugged his shoulders.