Workers Sue Sleepy Hollow Village and Firefighters for Explosion

By Merylee Robbins

Published on August 01, 2005

Michael Palmer and Robert Shelton both received severe burn injuries while working in a basement two blocks away from the village fire station. The explosion occurred when gasoline in the sewer system was ignited as a result of Shelton and Palmer turning on an electrical pump in the basement. In their lawsuit, the two workers accuse Assistant Fire Chief Paul Cappello and firefighter Miguel Valle, the only two firefighters in the firehouse at the time of the incident, of improperly discarding gasoline by pouring it down the sink and into the sewer, causing the fiery explosion.

The two firefighters deny the allegations, but it is known that the day the explosion occurred they had been completing a task which required them to remove gasoline from a fireboat on the Hudson. Fire Chief Jose Ojito remembers that the two had taken the canisters full of gasoline from the river, back to the firehouse. Whether or not they dumped the gasoline down the sink remains to be proven.

Palmer and Shelton have also named Fire Chief Jose Ojito and Sleepy Hollow Village in the suit, claiming that the village and the fire department should have trained the firefighters in the proper disposal of highly flammable liquids. The prosecutor's office is still investigating the incident and no criminal charges have been filed against Valle and Capello yet.

Comment on this article →