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Petro-Hunt Rig Floor Collapse Crushes Oilfield Worker Jesus Hernandez at a Pecos County, Texas Wellsite: Attorney911 Oilfield Work-Injury Attorneys Pursue the Well Operators and Drilling Contractors Behind Structural Failures, We Lock Down the Rig Debris, Maintenance Records and Digital Drilling Data Before the Wellsite Is Remediated, Texas Non-Subscriber Law Strips Employers of Common-Law Defenses, Gross Negligence and Conscious Indifference Unlock Exemplary Damages, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider, Crush and Amputation ($3.8M+ Recovered), $50M+ Recovered for Injury Victims — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

Pecos County Oilfield Rig Collapse: What Happened at the Petro-Hunt Wellsite — and What Your Rights Are When the Rig Floor Gives Way If you are reading this from a hospital room in Fort Stockton, Odessa, or Midland — watching someone you love recover from surgery after a rig floor collapsed underneath them — you are in a moment that most people cannot imagine and the oilfield never warns you about. The man on that bed was doing his job. The structure beneath him was supposed to hold. It did not. Now the medical bills are climbing, the company’s insurance adjuster has already started calling, and nobody from the operator has told you the truth about what failed or why. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle catastrophic oilfield injury and wrongful death cases in Texas. We are writing this for you and for every family in the Permian Basin who has been or could be in this position. This page is legal information, not legal advice. But it is the information we wish every family had before they signed anything, said anything to an adjuster, or let another week pass while the evidence at the wellsite disappears. The Incident: What the Public Record Shows On October 24, 2025, an oilfield worker was performing his duties at a Petro-Hunt Permian wellsite in Pecos County, Texas, when the rig floor suddenly collapsed beneath him. He was trapped and crushed underneath the collapsed structure. The injuries were severe…

Oilfield Worker Crushed to Death by Falling Blocks on a Permian Basin Well Site off FM 1379 in Midland County, Texas: Attorney911 Pursues the Operator and the Rig Contractor Behind the Block-Securement Failure, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, We Move to Secure the Fallen Blocks, Mounting Hardware and Inspection Logs Before the Operator Disposes of Them — the Company Has Already Locked Down the Well Site and Controls Every Piece of Physical Evidence, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values and Denies Oilfield Deaths, OSHA Oil and Gas Extraction Standards and API Equipment-Inspection Requirements, Texas Non-Subscriber Doctrine Strips Employer Defenses When Workers’ Comp Was Not Carried, the Firm Has Recovered Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

When the Company Says It “Secured the Well Site,” the Clock on Your Evidence Has Already Started If you are reading this because someone you love went to work in the Permian Basin and did not come home, the first thing you need to understand is that the company has already moved. Not because it is evil — because it is organized. The statement that the company “secured the well site” is not a comfort. It is a warning. It means the physical evidence — the blocks that fell, the mounting hardware that failed, the rig configuration that allowed it to happen — is now in the hands of the very entity whose choices may have caused the death. And in the oilfield, evidence does not wait for families to grieve before it disappears. This page is a forensic case study of a real incident that took the life of an oilfield worker in Midland County, Texas, on the morning of August 31, 2017, approximately 30 miles southeast of Midland off FM 1379. Blocks became loose on a well site and fell on the worker, killing him. A second worker was injured in the same event. The operating company confirmed the fatality involved one of its employees and publicly stated that it had “secured the well site” and would cooperate with government investigations. The incident is historical — the legal deadline to file has long since passed for this specific event — but the legal principles, the regulatory framework, and…

Hydrogen Sulfide Oilfield Wrongful Death in Odessa, Texas: Jacob and Natalee Dean Died After H2S — a Colorless Gas That Disables the Sense of Smell at Lethal Concentrations — Overcame Them Inside an Aghorn Pump House in the Permian Basin, Leaving Their Two Young Children Without Parents, Attorney911 Pursues the Oilfield Operators and Contractor Chains Behind Toxic Gas Exposure, We Secure the H2S Monitoring Records, Injection Well Integrity Files and Training Logs Before They Are Altered, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values and Denies Toxic-Death Cases, Texas Wrongful Death and Survival Actions, Gross Negligence and the Workers’ Comp Non-Subscriber Doctrine That Strips Employers of Common-Law Defenses, OSHA H2S Standards and Clean Air Act Violations, the Obstruction Charge That Signals Consciousness of Guilt and Spoliation Risk, the Firm Has Recovered Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

The Day the Gas Came: What Happened at the Aghorn Pump House in Odessa If you are reading this because someone you love went to work in the Permian Basin and did not come home — or because you watched the news about an Odessa pump house where a husband and wife died the same evening, leaving two children waiting in a car — you are already in the hardest part of this. You are sitting with a grief that does not fit into words, and you are trying to understand whether anything can still be done about it. We are going to tell you the truth about that, straight, because that is what you deserve. Here is what the public record shows. On October 26, 2019, a worker was dispatched by his employer, Aghorn Operating Inc., to check on one of the company’s pump houses in Odessa, Texas — an enclosed facility in the heart of the Permian Basin, where hydrogen sulfide gas can accumulate to lethal concentrations without any visible warning. He entered the building and was overcome by the gas. When he did not return and could not be reached by phone, his wife drove to the pump house with their two children, ages six and nine. She left the children in the vehicle, approached the building, walked inside, and was also overcome. Both died. The children survived because they never left the car. More than two years later, a federal grand jury in Midland indicted Aghorn…

Hydrogen Sulfide Wrongful Death at the Foster D Pump House in Odessa, Texas: Attorney911 Holds Oilfield Operators and the Contractors Behind Them When Broken Monitors and Missing Breathing Gear Turn a Water-Circulation Building Into a Lethal Chamber, Jacob and Natalee Dean Killed by H2S at 96,000 ppm, 137 Times the Rapidly Fatal Dose, Their Children Ages 9 and 6 Waiting in the Running Car on an October 2019 Night, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, We Pursue Aghorn Energy and Every Contractor and Parts Supplier in the Chain, We Secure the OSHA Willful-Violation File, the Railroad Commission Citation, the Monitor Calibration Logs and the Pump Maintenance Records on a Preservation Clock, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values Toxic-Death Cases, Texas Wrongful-Death Act and Gross-Negligence Doctrine Supporting Punitive Damages, Workers’-Comp Non-Subscriber Rules That Strip Employer Defenses, the Firm Has Recovered Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

Odessa Hydrogen Sulfide Oilfield Wrongful Death — H2S Toxic Exposure at Aghorn Energy Pump House Kills Husband and Wife When the Phone Goes to Voicemail at an Oilfield Site in Odessa If you are reading this page, someone you love may not have come home from a site in the Permian Basin. The phone went to voicemail. The truck is still in the lot. The children are still in the car. And what you are feeling right now — the disbelief, the rage, the need to understand how a person can walk into a metal building in West Texas and never walk out — is exactly where every family in this situation starts. You are not behind. You are at the beginning of a fight that most people never knew existed, in a place where the rules that should have protected your family were on the books and were ignored, and where the evidence of that failure is already starting to disappear. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases in Texas, including the oilfield corridors of the Permian Basin where hydrogen sulfide gas kills workers and the people who go looking for them. Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims from people exactly like you — and now uses that…

Fertilizer Plant Explosion & Industrial Fire Attorneys in West, TX — 15 Dead, 260 Injured When Ammonium Nitrate Stored in Combustible Wooden Bins With No Sprinklers Detonated Near Homes, a School and a Nursing Home on April 17, 2013, Attorney911 Brings Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, We Pursue West Fertilizer Company and the Ammonium Nitrate Suppliers Behind the Blast, We Secure the CSB Investigation Findings, OSHA Storage Records and Blast-Damage Documentation Before Evidence Is Lost, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values and Denies Catastrophic Cases, Texas Gross Negligence Law Supports Exemplary Damages for Conscious Disregard of Extreme Risk, the Firm Has Recovered $50M+ for Injury Victims and Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

West, Texas Fertilizer Explosion: When a Town Becomes the Blast Radius If you are reading this because someone you love was taken from you by an industrial explosion — or because you were standing in your kitchen when the sky turned white and the walls came in — you already know something that the rest of the country learned from a distance. You know that an ammonium nitrate detonation does not happen at the fence line. It happens at the dinner table. It happens at the school desk. It happens in the nursing home bed. And you know, in a way no investigation report can fully capture, that what happened was not an accident. It was a decision someone made, years before the fire started, to store tons of a detonable chemical in a wooden building with no sprinklers — next to houses, next to a school, next to people who were never told what was sitting in their backyard. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm that takes Texas catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases, built around a simple principle: the company’s choices are the case. What follows is our forensic legal analysis of the West Fertilizer Company explosion in West, McLennan County, Texas, on April 17, 2013 — fifteen people killed, two hundred and sixty injured, a community shaken to its foundation — and the legal framework that governs every comparable industrial explosion claim in this state. We write this as a resource,…

Oilfield Accident & Wrongful Death on a Reeves County, Texas Frac Site: Edward Rodriguez, 45, Killed by a Pressurized Device Rupture at the ProPetro-Operated Permian Resources-Guthrie State D 132H Well Pad, a Second Worker’s Arm Injury May Require Amputation, OSHA Investigating — Attorney911 Brings Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice to the Permian Basin, We Pursue the Frac Operator, the Well-Site Operator and the Equipment Manufacturer Behind the Rupture, We Secure the Ruptured Device, the Frac Job Logs and the Pressure Data Before They Are Scrapped or Overwritten, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Corporate Claims Machine Values and Denies Oilfield Cases, Amputation ($3.8M+ Recovered) and Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases, Texas Non-Subscriber Doctrine: If the Employer Opted Out of Workers’ Comp It Faces Full Tort Liability With No Contributory-Negligence Defense, the Statute of Limitations Is Running and Physical Evidence Disappears Within Days — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

Reeves County Oilfield Accident: One Dead, Two Injured at a ProPetro Frac Site on SH 285 If you found this page, you already know what happened on the night of January 27, 2025, eight miles south of Pecos on State Highway 285, at the Permian Resources–Guthrie State D 132H well site where ProPetro Services was running a hydraulic fracturing operation. A pressurized device ruptured. A 45-year-old man named Edward Rodriguez was killed — decapitated by the energy release. Two other workers were injured, one so badly he may lose an arm, the other treated for lesser injuries at Reeves Regional Hospital in Pecos before the most badly hurt was flown to Medical Center Hospital in Odessa, the regional trauma center more than an hour away. We are not going to pretend that what happened to your family is a statistic. A man went to work on a frac pad in the Delaware Basin and did not come home. Two other men were hurt beside him. And right now, while you are reading this at a kitchen table or a hospital waiting room, the evidence that would explain exactly what failed and why is disappearing — the ruptured device, the pressure data, the surveillance video, the maintenance records, the witnesses who will rotate to a different site next week. That evidence has a clock on it that runs faster than the two-year statute of limitations. The preservation letter that freezes those records has to go out in days, not months. The…

Three Oilfield Workers Killed in Pulling Unit Explosion Near Rankin, Upton County, Texas — Attorney911 Pursues the Well Operator and the Well-Service Contractor Behind the Permian Basin Blast, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, We Secure the Pulling Unit, Wellhead Equipment and Pressure-Control Records Before the Well Site Is Remediated and Evidence Is Scrapped, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values Oilfield Fatalities, Texas Wrongful Death Claims and the Non-Subscriber Doctrine Removing the Contributory-Fault Defense Against Non-Subscribing Employers, the Firm Has Recovered Millions in Wrongful-Death Cases — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

Three Workers Killed in a Pulling Unit Explosion Near Rankin — What Their Families Need to Know Right Now If you are reading this because someone you love did not come home from the well site that Tuesday morning in 2015, we want you to understand something before anything else: the company that owned the well and the company that employed your loved one are already, right now, building their defense. The well operator and the contractor employer are two different companies, and each one is already pointing at the other. The choices you make in the next few days — what you sign, what you say, who you talk to — will shape everything that follows. We are writing this page so that when that phone rings, you already know what is true and what is a trap. Three men died on a pulling unit crew at a Parsley Energy well site near Rankin, in Upton County, Texas. A fourth worker on the site survived. The Upton County Sheriff’s Office responded. OSHA launched a federal fatality investigation. The well was owned by Parsley Energy of Midland. The men who died were employed by Mason Well Service Ltd. of Odessa, an independent contractor. That last sentence — two company names, one word “independent contractor” — is the single most important fact in this case, and it is the fact the companies are counting on you not understanding. We handle wrongful death claims and workplace accident cases across Texas, including the…

Three Members of One Family Killed When a Pulling-Unit Rig Exploded 40 Miles South of Midland in Upton County, Texas — Arturo Martinez Sr., His Son Arturo Martinez Jr., and Son-in-Law Rojelio Salgado, a Fourth Worker Injured, Attorney911 Pursues the Well-Site Operator and Pulling-Unit Contractor Behind Permian Basin Oilfield Deaths, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, We Preserve the Wellhead Components, Gas-Detection Logs, and OSHA Investigation File Before the Site Is Remediated, Texas Non-Subscriber Doctrine Exposes Employers Who Opt Out of Workers’ Comp to Full Tort Liability Without Contributory-Negligence Defenses, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider, Millions Recovered in Wrongful-Death Cases — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

Upton County Oil Rig Explosion: Three Family Members Killed on a Permian Basin Well-Servicing Rig If you are reading this, someone you love may not be coming home from the oil patch. Maybe you got the call at the kitchen table in Midland, or Rankin, or Odessa — the call every family in the Permian Basin dreads and somehow never fully prepares for. Three men from one family left for a pulling-unit job about forty miles south of Midland, and an explosion took all three of them. A fourth worker was injured. The family said they want answers, and they are right to demand them — but the window for getting those answers is already closing, faster than anyone has told you. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm that takes Texas oilfield wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases. Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. Lupe Peña sat inside a national insurance-defense firm and watched how adjusters and their software price claims like yours — and now he uses that knowledge for the families the insurance machine was built to pay as little as possible. We handle these cases in English or in Spanish, because the Permian Basin workforce is our community. If you are reading this at 2 a.m. with a phone full of missed calls from people who say they are “just checking on you,” this page is for you — and the consultation is free.…

Frac Sand Truck Crashes & Wrongful Death in Midland’s Permian Basin: 26 Fatalities Since July on Rural Roads Built for Pickup Trucks Not 80,000-Pound Sand Haulers — Attorney911 Brings Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice to the Oil Patch, We Pursue the Dispatching Carriers and Owner-Operator Shells Behind Undertrained Drivers Working 12-Hour Six-Day Shifts, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Claims Machine Values and Denies These Cases, We Pull the ELD Records, Dispatch Telematics and ECM Black-Box Data Before the Overwrite Cycle Purges Them, FMCSA Hours-of-Service and the Oilfield Waiting-Time Exemption Carriers Exploit to Mask Driving Time as Off-Duty, Texas Gross-Negligence Standard for Punitive Damages, the Firm Has Recovered $2.5M+ in Truck-Crash Cases and Millions in Wrongful Death — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

Midland Frac Sand Truck Accidents: Permian Basin Oilfield Hauling Dangers, FMCSA Violations & Your Legal Rights If you are reading this page, someone you love may have been killed or badly hurt on a Permian Basin road — Highway 158, FM 1788, one of those two-lane farm-to-market stretches between the frac sand mines and the well sites that has become a de facto superhighway for 80,000-pound trucks. You may have gotten the call at 3 a.m. You may be sitting in a hospital waiting room in Midland or Odessa, or staring at a death certificate that says the cause was a commercial vehicle collision on a road that was never built to carry this kind of traffic. You may have already heard from an insurance adjuster who sounded sympathetic and wanted to help. We need you to hear this clearly before you talk to anyone: the conditions that killed your loved one are not inherent risks of a dangerous job. They are the results of choices made by companies that profit from the biggest oil boom in American history — choices about how long drivers stay behind the wheel, how much training they get before being dispatched onto unlit rural roads, and how much money is pulled out of the safety budget to feed the production schedule. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court, a journalist before he was a lawyer, a competitor who hates losing. Lupe…

Vacuum Truck Hit-and-Run at a Midland Restaurant Drive-Thru — Attorney911 Pursues the Oilfield Service Companies and Commercial Carriers Behind the Vacuum Trucks That Flee Permian Basin Crash Scenes, Ralph Manginello’s 27+ Years of Federal-Court Trial Practice, We Preserve the Surveillance Footage, DOT-Number Capture and Scene Debris Before the 30-Day CCTV Overwrite Erases the Evidence, Lupe Peña the Former Insurance-Defense Insider Who Knows How the Commercial Carrier Claims Machine Values and Denies Hit-and-Run Cases, 49 CFR 390-399 and Texas Negligence Per Se With Gross Negligence for Punitive Damages, the Firm Has Recovered $2.5M+ in Truck-Crash Cases and $50M+ Total — Free 24/7 Consultation, No Fee Unless We Win, Hablamos Español, 1-888-ATTY-911

Midland Vacuum Truck Hit-and-Run: What You Need to Know Right Now You were sitting in a drive-thru lane in Midland, or you were working inside the restaurant, or you were parked nearby when a vacuum truck came through — a truck built for the oilfield, not for a drive-thru lane — and hit something. A structure, a car, maybe a person. And then the driver left. No stopping. No information exchanged. No checking whether anyone was hurt. That is the moment you are in right now, and what you do in the next few days may decide whether the people responsible are ever held accountable. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle commercial vehicle cases across Texas, and we are writing this for one person: the person in Midland who was at that drive-thru, whose car was damaged, whose business was disrupted, or whose family member was hurt — and who is wondering whether a hit-and-run driver in a commercial truck can ever be found and made to answer for what happened. The answer is yes, but the window is brutally short, and the evidence that identifies that truck is disappearing while you read this. Here is the first thing you need to understand: this is not a normal fender-bender. A vacuum truck is a commercial vehicle. It is registered to a company. It carries a DOT number. It operates under federal safety regulations. And the driver who fled violated not just the basic duty to…

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