In 2002, the most recent year for which U.S. Labor Department statistics are available, 5,524 employees lost their lives in on-the-job accidents. Another 4.4 million workers were injured, many catastrophically. Sean George, of Peters, is one of them. What follows is his story of a fearful workplace accident that changed his life forever.

Story by Michael A. Fuoco
Photos by Steve Mellon
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

	With hands bearing witness to the savagery of flames that burned 65 percent of his body, steamfitter Sean George holds his high school photo, taken a few years before a workplace explosion severely altered his physical appearance and his life. Click photo for larger image. More pictures A special gallery: Workplace Accident Transforms a Life

A few weeks had passed and now it was time for Sean George to look at himself in the mirror.

He was lucky to have survived the natural gas explosion that had killed his cousin while they were working a job as steamfitters. Just how lucky, he didn't know -- he had not been allowed to use a mirror since he entered Mercy Hospital's Burn Unit.

The unrelenting pain from the burns on his head, neck, arms, chest, hands and elsewhere were a constant reminder of how savage the flames had been. But how much had his appearance been savaged? He was 19 and his looks meant so much to him.

Now he would be allowed to see for himself.

A nurse whose kindness had bolstered his spirits wheeled him into a bathroom. She gently helped him stand before a mirror.

No amount of kindness, no amount of time could have prepared him for what he saw. There, staring back at him, was someone he didn't recognize. His nostrils were flared, his face was beet read, his hair was gone. He barely looked human. He was horrified.

"Freak!" he thought.

Aloud, he screamed, "My life's over." And then he cried.

There was no way to know it then, in late 1975, but his life's journey had actually just begun. Ahead were decades of self-loathing and self-discovery, a journey of hellish lows and surprising highs, a search for a way back to his life and his work.

How it began

	A firefighter pokes through the rubble at West Allegheny Middle School in Imperial on Sept. 19, 1975, in the aftermath of the explosion and fire that critically burned Sean George and killed his cousin, John Rogers. Click photo for larger image.

It was Sept. 19, 1975. George awoke about 5:30 a.m. and packed a lunch of two peanut butter sandwiches, fruit and candy. He hopped in his Dodge Coronet and headed from Mt. Lebanon to the job site in Imperial where the West Allegheny Middle School was being built.

It was raining on this Friday morning, but George looked past the gloomy weather and the workday ahead. He thought of the party he would be attending that night at Penn State. That's going to be fun, he thought as he pulled into the muddy work site.

He was a little more at ease now on this, his third day as an apprentice steamfitter. He knew he had much to learn but the past two days had gone OK, especially for a job he never foresaw.

In fact, George, whose nickname was "Craze," admittedly hadn't really thought about any job, unlike his five siblings who sought careers as professionals. He gave college a shot, but after a year during which he earned "four credits and a lot of fun," his father, a second-generation steamfitter, suggested his son look into being a fitter himself.

Why not? George thought. He never really exhibited any mechanical ability or interest but he knew for certain he didn't want to sit in a cubicle all day long, realizing he was "a little too wired for that." So he applied for and got an apprenticeship in Steamfitters Local 449. For his first job, he was assigned to the boiler room beneath a new gymnasium and classroom buildings at the Imperial school.

Growing up in a fitter's family he had heard the names of members of that trade in stories told with so much reverence that he was in awe when he met those men in person on the job site that first day. Intimidated because he didn't have a clue what to do first, he was more than a little relieved when John Rogers, his cousin, was assigned as his journeyman-mentor.

George had always looked up to Rogers, who was 28 and lived in Penn Hills. Handsome, well liked, a "man's man" with a sharp wit, Rogers had taken George under his wing and the younger cousin was appreciative.

George was learning what was expected of him, was beginning to learn the tricks of the trade, was being inducted into the fraternity of fitters through the practical jokes journeymen play on apprentices. He figured there would be more of all that on this Friday.

In the job trailer he changed into the standard steamfitter's work clothes -- blue jeans, work boots, long-sleeved denim shirt, welder's cap, work gloves -- and headed to the gang box to get the tools for the crew.

The foreman explained to George and Rogers that their job on this day was to purge a 6-inch natural gas line of air in order to ignite a pilot light at a 3/4-inch connection to a space heater.

The men entered the 50-by-25-foot L-shaped room and set to work, first removing two "frying pans," metal plates between two flanges of the natural gas line that act as a safety block. George climbed an 8-foot ladder at one valve and his cousin stood about 18 feet away on two planks at another.

A picture of John Rogers--bearded, hair blowing, a confident smile--centers his tombstone in Mount Hope Cemetery in Penn Hills. "That's perfect. The picture conveys who he was," Sean George says of the cousin he admired. Click photo for larger image.

They cracked the valves but could smell no gas and couldn't light the pilot in three tries. All morning long they tried without success and then, after five hours, broke for lunch at noon.

Fitters doing the same work today have available to them hand-held combustible gas detectors, but such safety measures weren't available then. George and Rogers only had their noses to detect if gas was present.

And that's what they relied on when they returned to the valves after lunch, this time opening the valves all the way as two electricians worked near one of two exits to the room. A whoosh of air zoomed out of the lines, carrying with it particles of dirt, slag from welds and corrosion of the carbon steel pipe. Still no smell of natural gas.

They closed the valves and opened them again, and unsuccessfully tried to light the pilot. It was about 1:30 p.m.

Suddenly, George sensed something. Glancing to his right, he spotted blue flames shooting eight feet out of the valve near his cousin. He instinctively grabbed the handle of his valve to close it but orange flames blasted through it, shooting four feet into the room. An explosion knocked him off the ladder to the concrete floor.

In pain, he clutched his wrist, which he immediately knew was broken. And then, out of the corner of his eye he spotted something moving. Ethereal, surreal, it was a ceiling-high wall of fire swiftly advancing toward him.

By the time George bounded to his feet the flames had overtaken him. He screamed at the top of his lungs but his cries were muffled by the consuming flames.

All he could do was try to escape the inferno engulfing him. He sprinted toward the exit 20 feet away. Still ablaze, he bounded past the electricians, who had been thrown through the opening by the blast's force, and up some rubble to the ground level.

Later he would learn that his scream, which forced him to exhale as he sprinted out of the inferno in about three seconds, probably saved his life. Had he inhaled, the superheated gases would have burned his lungs, killing him.

Outside, George ended up face down in a puddle as another worker tamped out the flames still burning. He looked at his hands and saw skin hanging off of them. There was a stench that he could smell for months. It was the smell of his own burned flesh.

The pain was excruciating but the most devastating memory of that moment was the sound of his cousin, trapped inside, screaming for his life.

His eyes swelled shut. He could hear the voices of workers -- confused, distraught, panicked at the magnitude of the accident. One steamfitter poured ice on him, which was momentarily comforting. Ambulances arrived and he was taken to Mercy. His cousin was taken to West Penn Hospital.

At Mercy, as doctors and nurses scrambled to save his life, George heard a voice ask him his religion. "Catholic," he responded.

A short time later, a voice told him, "Sean, the Catholic Church is here."

George knew what was happening. The Last Rites, the Catholic sacrament for those near death, was being administered to him.

He refused to acknowledge what was happening. To do so, he felt, would mean death.

The pain deepens

Sean George stands in the boiler room of the West Allegheny Middle School where his decades-long physical and psychological journey began in 1975, and where his cousin was fatally burned. "There's some power here," he says softly. In the background, two school employees stand in the doorway through which George escaped. Click photo for larger image.

The consuming pain continued throughout most of George's eight-week stay in Mercy where he was treated for burns over 65 percent of his body, most of them third-degree, the most severe.

There would be daily visits to the Hydrotherapy Department. George would be immersed in water in "The Tank" where dead tissue would painfully be cut away to prevent infection.

There would be hallucinations and there would be death.

On Sunday, two days after the accident, one of George's brothers walked into his room. As had become a custom, the first words George uttered were "How's John?"

From his brother's expression, George knew. His cousin -- so strong, so much larger than life -- had perished.

And there would be more deaths.

In the hospital, George became friends with a patient in his mid-20s. He had been severely burned when a gas tank exploded, but his recovery was progressing nicely. Every morning on his way to The Tank, George would give his friend the thumbs-up, but one morning the bed was empty. He had died overnight.

And then there was a man and his 12-year-old son who both were being treated for severe burns. One night the father was screaming in pain, a not uncommon event in the unit, and George could tell nurses and doctors were attending to him. The screaming stopped after 15 minutes. George knew why and thought of the man's son, who had heard his father's last gasp of life.

Through his cousin's death and those of others, George was so consumed with his own fight for life that he had little emotion to expend elsewhere. It would be years before he could truly grieve.

The psychological pain began to build, erupting as it did with that first glimpse in the mirror. He went into an emotional tailspin, unable to articulate to psychologists and social workers what he was feeling. Communicating emotions had never been George's strong suit and now it caused the psychological effects from the flames to fester.

At one point, a brother told him, "Sean, if there's anyone who has a right to feel sorry for themselves, it's you, but you have to grab yourself by your bootstraps and keep moving." George heard him but couldn't do it.

As he was leaving the hospital, a nurse with whom he felt close bade him farewell.

"Sean, you're one of our miracles. Textbooks said you should have died," she said.

"Now the real struggle begins."

George had no idea what she was talking about.

"After what I've been through, what could be worse?"

Downward spiral

	Sean George visits with his parents, Beatrice and Bob George, at their Mt. Lebanon home. George followed a family tradition: His father and grandfather were also steamfitters. Click photo for larger image.

Back in Mt. Lebanon, the George family rallied around Sean to support his recovery, but they were also devastated. George's father, a stoic man of few words, remorsefully told his son he blamed himself for suggesting he enter the trade in the first place.

For his part, George was consumed with self-pity. Raised a strict Catholic, he blamed God.

"There probably is a God," he thought, "but he's a lousy bastard for doing this to me."

He became angry at everything and everyone. He even resented the "beautiful" people in TV shows and commercials.

Fueled by alcohol and drugs, he would fly into a rage and a fist fight at any perceived slight. When he wore a medical mask which covered his entire head, he'd fight anyone who stared. Insensitive remarks were met with violence. He was on edge, just waiting for the next comment, the next stare.

After a year, when he no longer had to wear the mask, he walked into the back yard and burned it, fully aware of the irony.

When he was not recovering from any of the 30 surgeries he underwent, he would return to work as a steamfitter but would never again purge gas lines.

Eventually, George was awarded a $1 million settlement for the accident. Either mercaptan, the compound that gives natural gas a sulfuric smell so it can be detected, hadn't been added at all or it had been absorbed by the carbon steel pipe. After attorney fees and unemployment compensation reimbursements, he was left with about $500,000, which he promptly set about spending.

A ski enthusiast, he moved to Colorado where he spent three years skiing, buying, boozing and drugging on cocaine, heroin, and methadone. Nothing gave him comfort.

Beaten down by the drugs and alcohol and having squandered his settlement, he moved back to the Pittsburgh area and re-entered the steamfitting trade. He was exhausted in so many ways. Eventually, he asked for help addressing the alcohol and drug issues and took classes at Community College of Allegheny County.

It was while preparing for a test in his Mt. Lebanon apartment in 1986 that his life changed again.

It was late at night. He was sitting at a desk studying his "Introduction to Accounting" textbook when he was overcome with a sense that something had entered the room. A calmness he had never felt before washed over him. Stunned, confused, he stopped studying and swiveled in his chair to the left.

There, in a full-length mirror, he caught his reflection. He saw the disfigurement but was filled with a new emotion. For the first time, he realized a mirror cannot reflect a man's essence. He saw himself anew.

"I'm not ugly," he thought. "I'm OK just the way I am. I'm lovable and it doesn't matter what I look like."

A door had been opened to believe again in something more powerful than himself. He had associated everything in his life to his disfigurement but this event allowed him to see beyond his appearance. His profound sense of loneliness dissipated.

He wept, but unlike the tears of loss shed previously, these were exultant.

The role model

Sean George now gives presentations on workplace safety. "It just makes me feel wonderful to think I have the ability to affect people in a positive way," he says. Here, he stands before part of his presentation, a computer representation of the boiler room where he was burned. George is represented by the figure on the ladder; his cousin is to his right. Click photo for larger image.

George began to live a more positive life but not without more obstacles. Twice he relapsed to addiction, both times after being prescribed pain medication, but he was able to pull himself out.

And then, about a year and a half ago, a chance encounter took his life in yet another new direction.

He was on the job at a coal-fired power plant outside of Kittanning when Gerry Klimo, safety trainer for Boilermakers Local 154, saw him walk past. Klimo didn't know George and asked George's foreman if his burns were job related.

Told they were, Klimo approached George and asked if he would talk to his crew of about 150 men at their weekly safety meeting. Among the group was a number of apprentices and Klimo wanted to drive home the point of how quickly a construction worker can be killed or severely injured, forever changing his life.

"If you touch one of my men safetywise, it would be worth it." Klimo told George, who said he'd have to think about it. He eventually agreed and told his story, leaving nothing out.

Klimo and others who heard George's presentation that day found it to be powerful, educational and emotional, including as it does both a work site death and a severe injury that took decades to overcome. So compelling was George's story that Klimo urged him to continue giving presentations to workers, insurance companies and others in the construction business.

George had never thought of it before, but what resonated with him was Klimo's comment that if he could help one person from being injured and killed, it would be worthwhile.

"I was convinced of that and I realized I had the ability to perhaps change people's lives. In my life, that is the single most powerful thing I've experienced, even more than the spiritual experience. To be given this gift, it's priceless," said George, now 48 and living in McMurray.

"I got to a point when I was about 40 when I realized I had never given anything back to society. I spent the first 40 years of my life pleasing myself or recovering from the burns and I started to try to search.

"This was dropped in my lap. It makes me feel worthwhile, it makes me feel useful. I have a purpose now."

He has given presentations to 15 organizations, most recently in Maryland, and is even exploring being represented by speaker's bureaus in either Washington, D.C., or Santa Monica, Calif.

George's story has become so well known in the construction trades that he was given a key role in a Workers Memorial Day event in Market Square, Downtown, in April -- ringing a bell every time the name of a worker killed on the job in Allegheny County was read.

Fit, friendly, and self-assured, George now describes his life as "a phenomenal journey."

Today, he'll march in Pittsburgh's annual Labor Day Parade, proud of being a worker, proud of being a steamfitter, and proud of being a survivor.

"I've had an incredible life with such a wide range of experiences and opportunities. The rewards are really starting to come now. I wouldn't trade places with anyone."