Clyde Township Confined Space Deaths: When a Routine Well Cleaning Becomes a Hydrogen Sulfide Killing Field
You are reading this because two young men went to work on a Tuesday afternoon in Clyde Township and did not come home. One was twenty-one. One was twenty. They were cleaning a well beneath the porch of a recently sold home on Cribbins Road, using muriatic acid the way they had done it before — and the confined space beneath that porch turned a job they had performed into a gas chamber they never saw coming. We are the trial team at Attorney911, and what we want you to understand before anything else is this: what happened on Cribbins Road was not an accident in the way the word is usually used. It was a preventable workplace killing that occurred because someone sent two young men into a confined space without atmospheric monitoring, without respiratory protection, without an attendant standing outside, and without a rescue plan — every one of which has been required by federal and Michigan occupational safety law for decades.
If you are a family member of one of these young men — if you are Jenny Kammer, who watched first responders carry her son out of that space, or if you are the family of Daniel Hagle, who went in after his partner because that is what human beings do when someone they work with goes down — we want you to hear something clearly before we talk about law or money or deadlines. The young man who entered that space to try to save his partner was doing exactly what OSHA’s rescue-plan requirement was written to anticipate and protect against. His death was not a separate accident. It was the second half of a single, foreseeable tragedy that a proper confined-space program would have prevented at every stage. He acted like a hero. The employer’s safety system — or its absence — is what failed both of them.
We handle workplace wrongful death and toxic exposure cases in Michigan and nationwide. What follows is our honest, complete analysis of what happened in Clyde Township, what the law requires, who may be responsible, what the evidence looks like, what it is worth, and — most urgently — what is disappearing right now while you read this.
What Happened on Cribbins Road: The Incident Reconstruction
On a Tuesday afternoon in February 2026, a crew of workers was cleaning a residential well at a recently sold home on Cribbins Road in Clyde Township, St. Clair County, Michigan. Clyde Township sits in the Thumb region north of the Detroit metro area, near Port Huron — a rural community where properties are served by private water wells rather than municipal systems, and where older well configurations frequently run through enclosed or semi-enclosed spaces such as well pits, crawlspaces, or the area beneath a porch. These are exactly the kinds of spaces that federal safety regulators have spent decades identifying as kill zones.
The workers were applying muriatic acid — a common name for hydrochloric acid — to clean the well. Muriatic acid is a standard well-cleaning agent, and one of the young men had reportedly been doing this work since his teen years. But on this day, inside the confined space beneath the home’s porch, the acid interacted with a mineral or chemical present in the well — most likely sulfide-bearing deposits or sulfate-reducing bacteria that are common in Michigan water wells — and the reaction generated hydrogen sulfide gas.
Hydrogen sulfide is not a slow-acting danger. At concentrations above 100 parts per million, it causes olfactory paralysis — meaning the victim loses the ability to smell the gas right before it kills them. At higher concentrations, a single breath can cause collapse. The gas is heavier than air, so it pools in the lowest point of a confined space — exactly where a worker bends down to access a well.
The first young man went down. He collapsed. The second young man — his partner, his friend — saw him go unresponsive, called for help, and then entered the confined space to try to pull him out. The gas overwhelmed him within moments. Both men were pronounced dead at the hospital. Three other workers at the site were hospitalized for gas exposure. Several first responders required decontamination at a local hospital as a precaution — the deputies who arrived first could smell the gas from where they parked their vehicle near the road and had to back off until fire crews arrived with proper personal protective equipment.
“This has been apparently a substance they used in the past, but this was a confined space, so when the acid interacted with a mineral or chemical in that well, it off-gassed.” — St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King
That word from the sheriff — “confined space” — is the word that changes everything about this case. It is the word that transforms a routine cleaning job into a federal safety violation. It is the word that tells us the death of the second young man was not a separate accident but the textbook secondary confined-space fatality that the rescue-plan requirement in OSHA’s confined-space standard was written to prevent.
The Science of Hydrogen Sulfide: Why This Gas Is a Silent Killer
To understand why these deaths were not random or unforeseeable, you need to understand what hydrogen sulfide does to the human body — and why the people who sent these workers into that space should have known.
Hydrogen sulfide — H2S — is a colorless gas that smells like rotten eggs at low concentrations. It is produced naturally when organic matter breaks down without oxygen, which is why it is common in wells, sewers, manure pits, and oilfield operations. In Michigan’s rural water wells, sulfate-reducing bacteria can generate H2S as a metabolic byproduct, and sulfide minerals in the geologic formation can release it when contacted by acid. The reaction between muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid) and iron sulfide or similar sulfide-bearing minerals is a well-documented source of H2S generation in well-cleaning operations.
What makes H2S uniquely deadly in a confined space is a property called olfactory paralysis. At low concentrations — 1 to 30 parts per million — the gas smells strongly of rotten eggs, and a worker might recognize the danger. But as the concentration rises above 100 ppm, the gas paralyzes the olfactory nerve. The worker stops being able to smell it. The warning signal disappears at exactly the moment the danger becomes lethal.
This is why the defense argument that “they should have smelled the gas and gotten out” is not just wrong — it is scientifically illiterate. The gas took away their ability to detect it before it took them down.
OSHA classifies hydrogen sulfide as an Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health (IDLH) substance. The occupational exposure ceiling limit is 20 parts per million, with a maximum peak of 50 ppm allowed for no more than 10 minutes. At 100 ppm, olfactory paralysis begins. At 300 ppm, the gas can cause pulmonary edema — fluid in the lungs — with a risk of death. At 500 ppm and above, a single breath can cause collapse, and at 1,000 ppm, death can occur within a single breath.
In the confined space beneath that porch on Cribbins Road, the acid-sulfide reaction could have generated concentrations at or above these lethal thresholds within seconds. The space was enclosed. There was no ventilation. There was no atmospheric monitor to warn anyone. And the gas, being heavier than air, settled exactly where the workers were bending to reach the well.
The first worker never had a chance to recognize the danger. The second worker — who went in to rescue his partner — also never had a chance, because the atmosphere in that space was already lethal by the time he entered. His death was not a mistake. It was a foreseeable human response to a situation that a proper confined-space safety program would never have allowed to develop.
The Regulatory Framework: What the Law Required Before Anyone Entered That Space
Michigan is what OSHA calls a state-plan jurisdiction — meaning Michigan operates its own occupational safety and health program (MIOSHA) under federal approval, and its standards must be at least as stringent as federal OSHA’s. The centerpiece regulation governing what happened on Cribbins Road is the Permit-Required Confined Spaces standard, found at 29 CFR 1910.146 in the federal code and in its Michigan equivalent.
A permit-required confined space is defined as a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics: it contains or has the potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere; it contains a material that could engulf an entrant; it has an internal configuration that could trap or asphyxiate someone; or it contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard. The space beneath that porch — enclosed, with limited entry and exit, not designed for continuous occupancy, and containing a well that could generate hazardous atmosphere — meets that definition on multiple counts.
Before any worker enters a permit-required confined space, the employer is required by law to implement a written permit-space program that includes:
Atmospheric testing before and during entry. The employer must test the air inside the space for oxygen content, flammable gases and vapors, and potential toxic air contaminants — including hydrogen sulfide — before anyone goes in, and must continue monitoring during the entry. The absence of a gas monitor on the Cribbins Road site is, by itself, a violation of a standard written in blood.
Ventilation. The space must be ventilated to control atmospheric hazards.
Respiratory protection. If the atmosphere cannot be made safe by ventilation alone — and in a confined space where acid is being applied to sulfide-bearing materials, it often cannot — the employer must provide appropriate respiratory protection, up to and including supplied-air respirators or self-contained breathing apparatus.
An attendant stationed outside the space. The standard requires that at least one trained attendant remain outside the permit space for the duration of the entry, monitoring the entrants and prepared to initiate rescue procedures. The attendant is not supposed to enter the space to attempt a rescue — they are supposed to summon a trained rescue team.
A pre-planned rescue procedure with equipment. The employer must develop and implement procedures for summoning rescue and emergency services, and must ensure that rescue equipment — including retrieval lines, tripods, and breathing apparatus — is available. If the employer relies on an off-site rescue service, the employer must evaluate that service’s ability to respond in time and inform them of the hazards they will face.
The employer must also conduct a hazard assessment of the space before authorizing entry. This means evaluating what chemicals or minerals might be present, what reactions might occur, and what atmospheric hazards could be generated. In a well-cleaning operation using muriatic acid, the potential for H2S generation from acid-sulfide reactions is a recognized hazard that a competent hazard assessment should have identified.
None of this is new. The Permit-Required Confined Spaces standard has been in effect since 1993. The hazard of H2S generation during acid cleaning of wells and similar equipment is documented in industrial hygiene literature going back further than that. The requirements are not suggestions. They are minimum legal standards, and they were written specifically to prevent the exact pattern of death that occurred on Cribbins Road: a first entrant overcome by a hazardous atmosphere, followed by a would-be rescuer who enters the same space and is also killed.
That pattern — the secondary confined-space fatality — is so well-recognized that OSHA built the rescue-plan requirement into the standard to address it. When an employer fails to provide a rescue plan, a retrieval system, and a trained rescue team, the predictable consequence is that a co-worker will attempt an unplanned rescue and die. The second death is as much a product of the employer’s regulatory breach as the first.
The Hazard Communication standard (29 CFR 1910.1200) adds another layer: the employer was required to maintain Safety Data Sheets for the muriatic acid, train workers on its hazards — including potential reaction products like hydrogen sulfide — and ensure that workers understood the danger of using it in enclosed environments. If the muriatic acid’s labeling and SDS did not specifically warn of H2S generation when the acid contacts sulfide minerals or sulfate-reducing bacteria in well environments, and did not explicitly warn against confined-space application without atmospheric monitoring, the manufacturer may also face products liability exposure.
The Defendant Stack: Who Can Be Held Accountable
When a worker is killed on the job, the first thing most families hear is that workers’ compensation is their only remedy. That is half-true, and the half they are not told is the half that matters. Here is the full picture under Michigan’s workers’ compensation system.
The Employer and the Workers’ Comp Wall
Michigan’s Workers’ Disability Compensation Act provides that workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy against the employer for a workplace injury or death. This means the families of the two young men generally cannot sue the employer directly in tort for negligence. Workers’ comp death benefits are paid on a statutory schedule — typically a percentage of the worker’s wage, paid to surviving dependents, with a cap on the total duration and amount.
But there is a critical exception that the employer and its insurer will never volunteer: if the employer did not carry required workers’ compensation coverage, or if the employer falls within an exemption that removes it from mandatory coverage, the exclusive-remedy shield may be unavailable. In that case, the employer can be sued directly in tort for the full measure of damages — including the human losses that workers’ comp was never designed to compensate. Whether the employer on Cribbins Road carried adequate coverage is one of the first questions that must be answered, and the answer is in records that can be altered or “lost” within days of a fatality.
Even when the comp shield holds, Michigan law preserves the employee’s right to pursue third-party tort claims against non-employer defendants. This is where the real case lives.
The Property Owner
The home on Cribbins Road had been recently sold. The purchaser — the current property owner — hired or permitted the well-cleaning work to be done. Under Michigan premises liability law, the property owner who possesses and controls the property owes a duty to warn of known dangerous conditions, including the well’s confined-space configuration and any chemical or mineral content that could react with cleaning agents. If the owner knew or should have known about the confined-space hazard beneath the porch, or about the well’s chemistry, and failed to warn the workers or to commission a safe-methods assessment before authorizing acid-based cleaning, the owner may be liable in negligence.
The property owner’s standard homeowner’s liability coverage may apply, though the policy limits could be modest — a fact that affects recovery but not liability.
The Seller of the Home
Michigan imposes seller disclosure obligations in real estate transactions. If the seller knew or had reason to know of sulfide mineral content in the well, prior well-cleaning difficulties, or the confined-space configuration beneath the porch, and failed to disclose this material condition to the purchaser and downstream contractors, the seller may face claims for misrepresentation or omission. The real estate transaction file — the seller disclosure statement, the home inspection report, and any well inspection log — is discoverable evidence that should be requested before the records are archived and difficult to retrieve.
The Muriatic Acid Manufacturer
If the muriatic acid product’s labeling and Safety Data Sheet did not specifically warn of the risk of hydrogen sulfide generation when hydrochloric acid contacts sulfide-bearing minerals or sulfate-reducing bacteria common in water wells, and did not explicitly prohibit or warn against confined-space application without atmospheric monitoring, the manufacturer may be liable for inadequate warnings under Michigan’s products liability framework. Products liability claims against a chemical manufacturer with commercial-level insurance can significantly expand the recovery available to the families beyond what the property owner’s homeowner’s policy or the employer’s comp coverage can provide.
Any General Contractor or Coordinating Entity
If a general contractor, property manager, or coordinating entity was present at the site and retained control over safety conditions, supervised the work, or coordinated the activities of multiple workers, that entity may face claims for negligent supervision, retained control of safety, and failure to coordinate confined-space entry protocols among the workers on site. The multi-employer worksite doctrine — recognized in both OSHA enforcement and civil liability — means that more than one entity can bear responsibility for the safety conditions at a work site.
Michigan Wrongful Death Law: The Legal Framework
Michigan’s wrongful death statute permits the personal representative of the decedent’s estate to bring a claim for the benefit of the surviving family members. The damages recoverable include loss of financial support, loss of society and companionship, emotional distress, and funeral and burial expenses.
The statute of limitations for a Michigan wrongful death action runs three years from the date of death. This is the clock that matters, and it is unforgiving — miss it and the case is dead, no matter how strong the evidence or how clear the liability. There may be equitable tolling provisions in narrow circumstances, but no family should ever count on them. The safe assumption is that the three-year clock started ticking on February 17 or 18, 2026, and it will not stop.
Michigan follows a modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar. This means a plaintiff is barred from recovery only if assigned fault exceeding 50%. The workers’ own conduct — their experience level, their decision to enter the space — will be scrutinized by the defense, but Michigan law takes the victim as it finds them, and the employer’s failure to provide a safe workplace and proper training controls the liability narrative regardless of the workers’ experience. A worker who has done a dangerous job a hundred times without safety equipment is not contributorily negligent for doing it the way he was taught — the employer’s duty to train, equip, and protect is non-delegable.
Michigan does not impose damage caps on wrongful death or general personal injury damages. Non-economic damage caps apply only in medical malpractice actions and are inapplicable here. This means there is no statutory ceiling on what a jury can award for the loss of these young men’s lives — the recovery is limited only by the strength of the proof and the depth of the available insurance and defendant assets.
Michigan does not generally permit punitive damages in standard tort actions. There are narrowly defined statutory contexts where exemplary damages may be available, but the damages ceiling in this case is driven by the strength of compensatory elements — the lost earning capacity, the loss of society and companionship, the conscious pain and suffering before death — rather than by punishment multipliers.
The survival action — distinct from the wrongful death claim — captures the pre-death conscious pain and suffering the decedent experienced. Both young men experienced acute respiratory distress, chemical mucosal injury, and the terror of suffocation before losing consciousness. The first entrant’s exposure period was potentially longer, as he was the initial victim. The second entrant — who witnessed his partner collapse, called for help, and made the conscious decision to enter the space to attempt a rescue — experienced the additional psychological torment of watching a partner go down and knowing he was entering a lethal atmosphere to try to save him.
The Evidence Clock: What Is Disappearing Right Now
This is the section we need every family to read most carefully, because the evidence in this case is perishable on a timeline measured in days, not months. Every hour that passes without a preservation demand is an hour in which proof can be legally or physically destroyed.
The Well and Confined-Space Configuration
The physical space beneath the porch — its dimensions, its ventilation characteristics, its access points, the mineral deposits on the well components, and the chemical residues from the acid-sulfide reaction — is the single most important physical evidence in this case. It proves the space was a permit-required confined space. It proves the reaction was foreseeable. It proves what the workers faced.
Who holds it: The property owner. How fast it can die: The property owner may alter, fill, or seal the space as part of remediation or renovation. Weather and time degrade chemical residues. This evidence must be documented by scene photography and measurement before the site is cleaned, and a preservation letter demanding that the space not be altered must go out immediately.
Muriatic Acid Containers, Labels, and Safety Data Sheets
The containers of muriatic acid at the work site establish the product identity, the manufacturer, the concentration, and — critically — the adequacy of the warnings regarding confined-space use and H2S generation risk.
Who holds it: The employer or the property owner. How fast it can die: Containers may be discarded, returned, or removed from the site immediately after the incident. The labels and SDS are small pieces of paper that can be “misplaced” with remarkable speed. These must be photographed and preserved on the day of the incident, or as soon thereafter as possible.
Employer Records: Training, Permits, Safety Manuals, Workers’ Comp Coverage
The employer’s training certificates, confined-space permits (if any exist — their absence is itself proof), safety manuals, employee rosters, and workers’ compensation coverage verification will establish whether the employer had a confined-space program at all, whether the workers were trained, and whether the comp exclusivity shield applies.
Who holds it: The employer. How fast it can die: Small employers may destroy or alter records within days of a fatality. Personnel turnover accelerates document loss. A preservation and records-demand letter must be sent immediately, and a FOIA request should be filed with MIOSHA to lock in production of the investigation file when it is complete.
MIOSHA Investigation File
MIOSHA will investigate this fatality. The investigation file will contain witness statements taken under oath, photographs, atmospheric sampling results (if conducted), and the employer’s safety-program documentation. MIOSHA citations — if issued — will establish the specific regulatory violations the agency found.
Who holds it: MIOSHA. How fast it can die: The investigation may take weeks to months. The citations may be contested and settled with reduced classifications. An immediate FOIA request should be filed to lock in production of the file when it is complete, and the citation status should be monitored.
Cell Phone Communications and Work Orders
Text messages, call logs, and work orders between the employer, the property owner, and the workers will establish who directed the work, what safety instructions were given (or not given), whether the confined-space hazard was discussed, and whether the property owner disclosed the well’s conditions.
Who holds it: The employer, the property owner, and the workers’ phone carriers. How fast it can die: Carrier retention policies may overwrite text and call records within 30 to 90 days. These records must be preserved through a litigation-hold letter to the parties and a preservation demand to the carriers before the retention windows close.
Real Estate Transaction File
The seller’s disclosure statement, the home inspection report, and any well inspection log will determine whether the seller or inspector knew or should have disclosed sulfide mineral content, prior well-cleaning problems, or the confined-space configuration.
Who holds it: The closing agent, the title company, and the real estate agents. How fast it can die: Transaction files are typically retained by closing agents but may be archived and become difficult to retrieve. They should be requested before records are moved to long-term storage.
Autopsy and Toxicology Reports
The St. Clair County Medical Examiner’s office will conduct autopsies and toxicology analyses that confirm the cause of death as acute H2S toxicity, establish blood and tissue sulfide levels, and document the temporal sequence of exposure and death for both victims.
Who holds it: The Medical Examiner. How fast it can die: Autopsy results may take four to eight weeks, but the medical examiner’s preliminary findings should be requested immediately. The tissue and blood samples themselves have a finite preservation window — if the family wants independent analysis, the samples must be preserved before they are disposed of.
Personal Protective Equipment — or Its Absence
The presence or absence of gas monitors, respirators, retrieval lines, and ventilation fans at the scene is physical proof that no confined-space safety equipment was used. If any equipment was present, it must be documented before it is removed.
Who holds it: The employer or the scene. How fast it can die: Any equipment that was present may be removed by the employer. The absence of equipment must be documented by scene photography before the site is cleaned — because it is far harder to prove what was not there after the scene has been altered.
The Insurance-Adjuster Playbook: What They Will Try
When a workplace death occurs, the machinery of the defense begins moving within hours. Here are the plays you should expect, and the counter to each.
Play 1: The “Workers’ Comp Is Your Only Remedy” Pivot
Within days of the death, the employer’s workers’ compensation carrier will contact the family, express sympathy, and begin processing the death benefit claim. The implicit message — sometimes stated outright — is that this is the only money available and the family should sign the paperwork and move on.
The counter: Workers’ comp is the exclusive remedy against the employer only — and even that exclusivity depends on whether the employer carried required coverage. Third-party claims against the property owner, the muriatic acid manufacturer, the seller, and any coordinating contractor are fully preserved under Michigan law. The comp death benefit is a floor, not a ceiling. The real case — the case that compensates the family for the full value of a young life lost — runs through the third-party track.
Play 2: The Recorded Statement Request
Someone friendly — an adjuster, a “loss consultant,” or an investigator hired by the employer’s carrier — will call the family and ask them to “just tell us what happened” on a recording. The purpose of this recording is not to help the family. It is to lock in statements that can later be quoted against them — to establish inconsistencies, to pin down a timeline before the family has had time to process what happened, and to create a record that can be used to minimize the value of the claim.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement to anyone without counsel. The family has no legal obligation to provide one to the employer’s carrier or to any third-party insurer. Anything said to an adjuster can and will be used to reduce the value of the claim. The only statement that protects the family is one made with the advice of an attorney who knows what the adjuster is actually building.
Play 3: The Quick Settlement Offer
A check may arrive fast — sometimes within weeks — accompanied by a release form that, once signed, extinguishes every claim the family has against every party, including the third-party defendants the family has not yet identified. The amount may look substantial to a grieving family that is suddenly facing funeral costs and lost income, but it will be a fraction of what the case is worth once the full defendant stack is mapped and the evidence is preserved.
The counter: Never sign a release without counsel. A settlement that resolves only the workers’ comp claim while preserving third-party rights may be appropriate — but a blanket release that waives the family’s tort claims against the property owner, the chemical manufacturer, and other defendants is a permanent, irreversible surrender of the family’s right to full compensation. The time to evaluate a settlement is after MIOSHA citations issue, after the full defendant stack is identified, and after the evidence has been preserved — not in the first weeks after the funeral.
Play 4: The Blame-the-Worker Defense
The defense will emphasize that one of the young men had been doing this work since his teen years — implying that he was experienced enough to know the risks, and therefore the employer is not responsible for his failure to protect himself. The defense may also frame the rescue attempt as contributory negligence — arguing that the second worker chose to enter a dangerous space.
The counter: Michigan’s modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar means the workers’ own conduct reduces recovery only if they are assigned more than 50% of the fault — and the employer’s non-delegable duty to provide a safe workplace, combined with its failure to provide atmospheric monitoring, respiratory protection, an attendant, and a rescue plan, controls the liability narrative. The rescue attempt by the second worker was not negligence — it was the textbook foreseeable secondary confined-space fatality that OSHA’s rescue-plan requirement was written to prevent. The employer is responsible for both deaths under a single breach of duty.
Play 5: Social Media and Surveillance
The insurance company will monitor the family’s social media accounts and may conduct surveillance. Any post that appears to show a family member “moving on” — attending a gathering, smiling in a photo, returning to work — will be used to argue that the emotional distress damages are exaggerated.
The counter: Grief does not follow a straight line. A family member who attends a birthday party three weeks after a death is not “recovered.” But the insurance company will use any image it can find to minimize the claim. The family should assume they are being watched, should not discuss the case online, and should be circumspect about what they post until the case is resolved.
The Proof Story: How This Case Is Actually Built
Here is how a wrongful death case arising from a confined-space fatality is actually built, from the day the family calls to the day a number is put on the table.
Week one: The preservation demand goes out — to the employer, the property owner, the muriatic acid manufacturer, and any third-party insurer — ordering them to freeze every piece of evidence: the well configuration, the chemical containers, the training records, the phone records, the scene itself. A FOIA request is filed with MIOSHA to lock in the investigation file. The real estate transaction file is requested from the closing agent. The medical examiner’s office is contacted for preliminary findings and to preserve biological samples.
Weeks two through eight: The employer’s safety program and confined-space compliance are examined through records demands. The real estate transaction chain is traced — what did the seller disclose, what did the inspector note, what did the well log show. The muriatic acid product is identified by manufacturer, lot number, and labeling, and the warning label is compared against industry safety literature on acid-sulfide reactions in wells. If the employer’s workers’ comp coverage is in question, that investigation runs in parallel.
Months two through six: Expert witnesses are retained. A certified confined-space safety expert and a certified industrial hygienist reconstruct the atmospheric conditions inside the space, calculate the likely H2S generation rate from the acid-mineral reaction, and testify to the standard of care requiring atmospheric monitoring before entry. A forensic toxicologist addresses the H2S mechanism of death — olfactory paralysis at 100 ppm, the loss of the ability to smell the gas before collapse, and the rebuttal to any defense argument that the workers should have self-evacuated. A forensic economist models the lifetime earning capacity of both decedents using their age, education, work history, and regional wage data, and produces separate loss-of-society valuations for each family.
Months six through eighteen: Discovery proceeds — depositions of the employer’s safety director, the property owner, the seller, and any coordinating contractor. The MIOSHA citations, when issued, are incorporated. The defendant stack is finalized. The evidence is locked in.
The number: The settlement demand is built from all of it — the life-care plan that will never be needed because the lives were lost, the lost-earnings projection that runs 45 to 50 years for each young man, the conscious pain and suffering before death, the loss of society and companionship for each family, the funeral expenses, the medical transport and resuscitation costs, and the cost of grief counseling. The demand is transmitted to every liability carrier once the regulatory violation evidence is locked in. Mediation is deferred until the full defendant stack is mapped and the MIOSHA citations have issued.
What This Case Is Worth
We do not guarantee outcomes, and every case turns on its own facts. What we can do is give you an honest framework for how the value of a case like this is built.
The low end — approximately $3,000,000 to $5,000,000: This assumes a limited third-party defendant pool, with the employer shielded by workers’ compensation exclusivity and the property owner carrying only standard homeowner’s liability coverage with modest policy limits. Recovery would be constrained to workers’ comp death benefits plus a modest premises settlement. This is the scenario the insurance company is hoping for — where the family never identifies the deeper pockets.
The high end — approximately $10,000,000 to $18,000,000: This assumes viable product-liability claims against the muriatic acid manufacturer with commercial-level insurance, a premises settlement from the property owner, and either an uninsured-employer tort action (if the employer lacked required comp coverage) or a third-party claim against a general contractor or well-service company with commercial general liability coverage. Two deaths of men in their early twenties, each with 45 to 50 years of lost earning capacity, combined with clear regulatory violations and three additional injuries, drive the compensatory core. Michigan’s absence of damage caps on wrongful death means the recovery ceiling is driven by the strength of the proof, not by a statutory limit.
The value deflators in this case are real: Michigan does not generally permit punitive damages in standard tort actions, and the workers’ compensation exclusivity barrier limits direct recovery from the employer. The value drivers are also real: two young lives with multi-decade earning capacity, clear and documented regulatory violations that go to the heart of the standard of care, a foreseeable secondary fatality that was specifically anticipated by the safety standard the employer violated, and a broad potential defendant stack that includes a chemical manufacturer with commercial insurance.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can tell you is that the difference between the low end and the high end of this range is determined almost entirely by two things: how quickly the evidence is preserved, and how thoroughly the defendant stack is mapped. Both of those are functions of how soon an experienced trial team begins work.
The Medicine: What These Young Men Experienced Before Death
We address this with restraint, because these were real people whose families are grieving. But the defense will minimize the pre-death suffering, and the survival action — which compensates the decedent’s estate for conscious pain and suffering before death — depends on an honest account of what the body goes through during acute H2S toxicity.
At lethal concentrations, hydrogen sulfide acts as a cellular poison that blocks oxidative metabolism — the process by which cells use oxygen to produce energy. The effect is similar to cyanide poisoning: the blood remains oxygenated, but the cells cannot use the oxygen. The victim effectively suffocates at the cellular level while still breathing.
Before unconsciousness, the victim experiences acute respiratory distress — the sensation of being unable to breathe despite drawing air. The mucous membranes of the eyes, throat, and lungs are chemically injured by the gas, producing burning, irritation, and inflammation. There may be convulsions. There is the psychological terror of sudden, unexplained suffocation — the body’s alarm systems firing at full intensity, the desperate drive to breathe, the recognition that something is profoundly wrong.
The first entrant — who was in the space longer and was the initial victim — experienced this progression over a period that may have been minutes but likely felt like an eternity. The second entrant witnessed his partner collapse, called for help, made the conscious decision to enter a space he knew had overcome his partner, and then experienced the same progression himself. The survival damages for the second entrant include not only the physical suffering but the emotional torment of watching a partner go down and choosing to go in after him — a decision that was heroic, not negligent, and that the law treats as a foreseeable consequence of the employer’s failure to provide a rescue plan.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do Now
If you are a family member reading this in the days after the incident, here is what matters most, in order of urgency.
Do not sign anything. Do not sign a release, a settlement agreement, a workers’ comp waiver, or any document from the employer’s insurance company or the property owner’s carrier without speaking to an attorney first. A document signed in grief can permanently extinguish rights that are worth millions.
Do not give a recorded statement. The adjuster who calls you is not your friend, no matter how sympathetic they sound. Their job is to build a file that minimizes the value of your claim. Anything you say can and will be used against you.
Do not post about the incident on social media. Assume the insurance company is monitoring your accounts. Photos, check-ins, and comments can all be taken out of context and used to argue that your grief is not as severe as you claim.
Do preserve everything you have. If you have any photographs of the scene, any text messages from your loved one about the job, any documents about the work or the property, keep them in a safe place and do not share them with anyone except your attorney.
Do contact an attorney immediately. The preservation letter — the document that orders the employer, the property owner, and the chemical manufacturer to freeze the evidence before it is destroyed — is the single most time-sensitive step in this case. The well configuration, the chemical containers, the training records, and the phone records are all on a clock that started the moment the incident occurred. Every day that passes without a preservation demand is a day in which evidence can legally or physically disappear.
Do connect with grief counseling and a victims’ advocate. The emotional impact of losing a young family member to a preventable workplace death is devastating, and the grief is compounded by the legal process that follows. Professional support is not a luxury — it is a necessity, and the cost of counseling is a recoverable element of damages.
Why This Firm
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm that takes Michigan cases, working with local counsel and through pro hac vice admission where required. We do not claim an office in Michigan, and we will not pretend to one. What we bring is 27 years of trial experience in catastrophic injury and wrongful death litigation, a deep knowledge of the regulatory framework that governs confined-space safety, and a former insurance-defense insider who knows exactly how the other side prices and defends these claims.
Ralph P. Manginello is our Managing Partner. He has been licensed since November 6, 1998 — 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court in the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he asks questions for a living and does not accept the first answer the other side gives. He has spent his career in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases where the other side is a corporation or an insurance company with resources that dwarf what the family can bring to the table. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and he takes Michigan cases with local counsel where the venue requires it.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney. He spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like the families on Cribbins Road. He knows how claims are valued by the software the insurance industry uses. He knows how IME doctors are selected to minimize injuries. He knows how surveillance is deployed and how recorded statements are engineered. And now he uses that knowledge for injured people and their families. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
Our fee is contingency. We charge 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The first consultation is free, and it is confidential. Our hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not by an answering service, but by live staff who can connect you with an attorney.
Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts full consultations in Spanish. If your family is more comfortable speaking in Spanish, we will speak to you in Spanish — not through an interpreter, but directly, person to person.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. Or reach us at our contact page. The call is free. The consultation is free. And the preservation letter that freezes the evidence before it disappears goes out the day you call.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we sue the employer if workers’ compensation covers the death?
In most cases, Michigan’s Workers’ Disability Compensation Act makes workers’ comp the exclusive remedy against the direct employer — meaning you generally cannot sue the employer in tort for negligence. However, there are two critical exceptions: if the employer did not carry required workers’ compensation coverage, the exclusive-remedy shield may drop and the employer can be sued directly. And regardless of the employer’s coverage, Michigan law preserves the right to pursue third-party tort claims against non-employer defendants — the property owner, the muriatic acid manufacturer, the seller of the home, and any coordinating contractor. These third-party claims are where the full measure of compensation is typically recovered in a workplace fatality.
How long do we have to file a wrongful death claim in Michigan?
Michigan’s wrongful death statute of limitations runs three years from the date of death. This is a hard deadline — miss it and the case is over, no matter how strong the evidence. There may be narrow equitable-tolling provisions, but no family should ever rely on them. The three-year clock is the one that matters, and it started ticking the day these young men died.
Was the second worker’s rescue attempt contributory negligence?
No. The second worker’s entry into the confined space to rescue his partner was not negligence — it was the textbook foreseeable secondary confined-space fatality that OSHA’s rescue-plan requirement was specifically written to prevent. When an employer fails to provide a trained rescue team, retrieval lines, and self-contained breathing apparatus, the predictable consequence is that a co-worker will attempt an unplanned rescue and die. The law treats the second death as a proximate result of the same regulatory breach that caused the first. The rescue attempt was an act of human courage, and the employer’s failure to plan for it is what made it fatal.
What is hydrogen sulfide and why is it so dangerous in confined spaces?
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a colorless gas produced when acid contacts sulfide-bearing minerals or when organic matter decomposes without oxygen. It is classified by OSHA as Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health (IDLH). Its most insidious property is olfactory paralysis — at concentrations above 100 parts per million, the gas paralyzes the olfactory nerve, and the victim loses the ability to smell it right before it kills them. The warning signal that might have allowed a worker to recognize the danger and flee disappears at exactly the moment the danger becomes lethal. In a confined space with no ventilation and no atmospheric monitor, a lethal concentration can build within seconds and the worker will never know it is there.
What if the employer says the workers were experienced and should have known better?
Experience does not transfer the employer’s legal duty to the worker. The Permit-Required Confined Spaces standard places the duty to test the atmosphere, provide ventilation, supply respiratory protection, station an attendant, and plan for rescue squarely on the employer — not on the worker. A worker who has performed a hazardous job a hundred times without safety equipment has been exposed to a hundred near-misses, not a hundred demonstrations that the job is safe. The employer’s non-delegable duty to provide a safe workplace controls the liability analysis, regardless of the worker’s experience level. Michigan’s modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar means the workers’ own conduct would reduce recovery only if they were assigned more than 50% of the fault — and when the employer violated every element of the confined-space standard, that allocation is extremely unlikely.
Can we pursue a claim against the company that made the muriatic acid?
Potentially, yes. If the muriatic acid product’s labeling and Safety Data Sheet did not specifically warn of the risk of hydrogen sulfide generation when the acid contacts sulfide minerals or sulfate-reducing bacteria in well environments, and did not explicitly warn against or prohibit confined-space application without atmospheric monitoring, the manufacturer may be liable for inadequate warnings under Michigan’s products liability framework. Products liability claims against a chemical manufacturer with commercial-level insurance can significantly expand the recovery available to the families. The product containers, labels, and SDS at the work site are critical evidence that must be preserved immediately.
How much is a confined-space wrongful death case worth?
No attorney can guarantee a specific outcome, and every case turns on its own facts. Based on the framework we use — which includes lost earning capacity for young workers with 45 to 50 years of working life expectancy, conscious pain and suffering before death, loss of society and companionship, and the full defendant stack — a case like this can range from approximately $3,000,000 on the low end (limited third-party defendants, modest coverage) to $18,000,000 or more on the high end (viable product-liability claims, commercial coverage, uninsured-employer tort action). Michigan does not cap wrongful death damages, so there is no statutory ceiling — the recovery is limited by the strength of the proof and the depth of available insurance and defendant assets. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What should we do right now, today, to protect our family’s rights?
Three things, in this order: First, do not sign anything and do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster. Second, preserve every document, photograph, and communication you have related to the incident, your loved one’s employment, and the property. Third, call an experienced workplace wrongful death attorney immediately — the preservation letter that freezes the well configuration, the chemical containers, the training records, and the phone records before they are destroyed is the single most time-sensitive step in this case, and it goes out the day you call. Our hotline, 1-888-ATTY-911, is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The consultation is free, confidential, and costs you nothing — and it may be the most important call your family makes.
The Bottom Line
Two young men went to work on a Tuesday afternoon in Clyde Township, and the confined space beneath that porch on Cribbins Road killed them both — not because the danger was unknowable, but because the safety system that has been required by law for more than thirty years was not in place. No atmospheric monitor. No ventilation. No respiratory protection. No attendant outside. No rescue plan. Every one of those absences is a violation of a standard written in the blood of workers who died the same way before them.
The employer will point to workers’ compensation as the end of the story. It is not. The property owner, the chemical manufacturer, the seller, and any coordinating contractor are all potentially accountable under Michigan law — and the recovery available through those third-party claims is what truly compensates a family for the loss of a young life with decades of earning capacity and a lifetime of companionship ahead of it.
The evidence is disappearing. The well can be altered. The chemical containers can be discarded. The training records can be “lost.” The phone records can be overwritten. Every day that passes without a preservation demand is a day the defense gains and the family loses.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. And the letter that freezes the evidence before it vanishes goes out the day you call — because the difference between justice and a closed case in Clyde Township may come down to which side moved first.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.