Lawsuit filed on the first anniversary of power plant collapse that led to multiple deaths in Southern Ohio

Wilkes & Associates, P.A. filed a wrongful death complaint on behalf of The Estate of James Fitzgerald, one of several workers inside the Killen Generating Station located in Adams County, Ohio, when it collapsed and buried Fitzgerald alive on December 9, 2020. It took crews 30 days to recover his body.

Several demolition sequences to the former power generating facility made the building unsafe before it collapsed; yet, superiors instructed Fitzgerald, and others, to enter the danger zone and continue to weaken the structure, knowing that the building had become hazardous.   

“There were warning signs, there were sounds of twisted metals coming from the boiler room and the structure,” said Blake Fromang, trial counsel for Plaintiff, in an interview with Fox 19 Cincinnati. “There was every sign that this was going to happen.” 

In the midst of the holiday season, while doing his job, providing for his family, Fitzgerald’s last memory was the sight and sounds of an entire building coming down around him with no opportunity for escape.

“[Fitzgerald’s loved ones] live with the nightmare to this day,” Fromang said. 

Read the article and watch the interview here.