The Journal. - 'Our Refinery Is On Fire': Two Brothers and a Deadly Explosion

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Brothers Ben and Max Morrissey were killed over a year ago by an explosion at their workplace, an oil refinery co-owned and operated by the oil giant BP in Ohio. WSJ's Jenny Strasburg talks to family members the brothers left behind and investigates what went wrong at the refinery. Further Reading: -He Feared His Refinery Job. His Brother Stayed to Help. The Explosion Hit at 6:46 P.M.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Kate. Today's episode is going to be hosted by our colleague Jenny Strasberg. She covers British oil company BP. I don't know, where's your emergency? Hi, I'm in Oregon off of Coy. Last year, on September 20th, in Oregon, Ohio, outside of Toledo. There's like a gigantic black cloud of smoke. It looks like something huge is on fire. A fireball lit up the sky at 646 in the evening. One of the town's oil refineries was belching black smoke and flames. A refinery that was co-owned and

operated by BP, the British oil giant. 911, where's your emergency? Hello, I need someone to go over to BP refinery. It looks like they had a big explosion over there. People across Oregon peered from their cars and snapped photos from their backyards. Emergency, hurry up. It's a very emergency. Someone needs to go over there now, ASAP. People across Oregon peered from their cars and snapped photos from their backyards. Meanwhile, inside the refinery, chaos. Crude 1, the heart of the complex, was in trouble. Yeah, what's going on, Mike? What happened? Workers across the whole complex raced to get control of everything going wrong.

Thomas Newman was one of those workers. Hi, this is Thomas Newman, and this is my recollection of what took place on Tuesday, September 20th at the BP refinery. Five days after the fire, Thomas sat down at his kitchen table. His wife had urged him to document every detail he could remember, while it was all so fresh in his mind. So Thomas pulled out his phone, switched on a recording app, and started talking. I was not scheduled to work that day and was covering somebody who was on leave.

When I arrived at the refinery, both the flares, the east and the west, were blowing flames and dark smoke out of them, fairly high, 50, 60 feet in the air. And I just thought to myself that it didn't look like it was going to be a good day. The refinery had been battling problems since before dawn. After the 5 p.m. shift change, Thomas was part of a smaller team working outside near Crude One. That team included a foreman and two brothers, Max and Ben Morrissey. Ben was a new hire trainee. He stuck around after his shift ended to help his older brother Max. Their radios were crackling with orders, evacuate all non-essential personnel. But for those still there, it was already too late. I was looking to my left toward the crude furnaces and the fuel gas mix drum when I saw the explosion.

The blast knocked me sideways. I immediately grabbed the mic on my radio and called out that there was an explosion in Crude 1. We had a fire in Crude 1. I saw a person come walking out of the fire totally engulfed from head to toe. Every inch of their body was on fire. And I called over the radio that we had a man down, that we had a man on fire. And I was spraying them with the hose and put the fire out on them.

And I was screaming over the radio that we needed an ambulance. And I realized it was Max Morrissey. And he was just screaming in pain, and he was burnt so bad. The hair was burnt off of his head. And I was yelling at Max. I was letting Max know that I'm there. I'm going to get him out of there.

He was like, Tom, get me out of here. Tom, where's my brother? Where's my brother? Find my brother? Where's my brother? Find my brother, Ben. Thomas was talking about Max and Ben Morrissey, 34 and 32 years old, two brothers with young kids, locals who were high school wrestlers together. Who shared dreams of building lake houses. Backyard cookouts. Family fishing trips.

They would both be dead by sunrise. The BP refinery in Oregon had only recently gone through a months-long maintenance project aimed at making it more efficient. More reliable. Safer. only recently gone through a months-long maintenance project aimed at making it more efficient, more reliable, safer. This is the story of the many things that went wrong leading up to that explosion, and what it cost one family. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jenny Strasberg. It's Friday, November 3rd. Coming up on the show, two brothers and tragedy in a refinery town. Looking for a change of scenery?

Come on over. Let us give you the tour. Grab a paddle and explore. Hit the trails and go. When you're ready, kick back and call it a night. New Brunswick. Always inviting. Visit tourismnewbrunswick.ca Oregon, Ohio, is a place that hums with industry. A place where, in the words of the retired fire chief,

a lot of things can go boom. About 20,000 people live there. A soaring landmark bridge connects it to Toledo. Drive along the main drag, and you'll see aging strip malls and family-style restaurants. Just beyond, webs of railroad tracks

and small farms with duck ponds. It's impossible to miss the refineries, the towering columns with their vertical flares brightly burning off gases. Ben and Max Morrissey were born and raised in Oregon. They lived near their parents and sisters. Now, their wives live just blocks apart. You gotta be quiet, buddy, okay? I thought you were still gonna be sleeping for a little bit.

The day I go visit Ben's wife Katie and May, their son Wesley, just two at the time, is twisting around on the couch, close to his mom. Toys all over the floor. is twisting around on the couch, close to his mom. Toys all over the floor. Cartoons on the television. Mommy! Yes, I love you. There's a baby girl asleep in Katie's arms.

She's four days old. Her name is Benna, after her dad. All right, little girl. Oh. She's the best. She is, little girl. Oh. She's the best. She is. She's pretty awesome. Ben was the younger of the two. People who knew him tell me he came across as shy,

at least until you got to know him. He had a wrestler's build and a wide, toothy smile. In everyday videos of his life, there's Ben peeling shrimp for their baby. You got expensive taste? Ben telling Katie how he feels. I love you. Oh, I love you too. They met at Max's wedding.

Katie told me about the ways he acted around her, the ways he made her laugh. That's just how he was. He was like kind of awkward, but it was like a good awkward, like weird, like both good, weird. And like shy, awkward or kind of just like kind of dorky, awkward. Both. Okay. Yeah. He could be shy and dorky, for sure. He was very silly. And, yeah, so we went out, and he was there, and we danced all night long. And I remember asking him why he wasn't drinking. And he told me that he was sober.

And I said, oh, okay. Ben was open about his sobriety. Years before he met Katie, he had taken pills as a high school wrestler. He became addicted to painkillers, his parents said, and then heroin. It was a very short, horrible period in his life. It didn't last long, but it got really, really, really bad. What was, like, rock bottom? When he was basically homeless. Ben's parents tried to coax him into rehab, but he didn't seem ready. They told me things got so bad that Ben overdosed, twice.

He eventually found help in an inpatient center in New York's Hudson Valley. He emerged months later, clean. When we met, he was four years sober. So, his, you know, there's, that's a big

deal, you know. And it's still four years. That's really early on in his sobriety. Yeah. What captured you about him like what really hooked you there was just something about how he would his presence was so calming and he would just make you feel good just to be around. Do you want to sit up here, Wesley?

Come on up. Come on, bud. Mom could use a hug. Last year, Ben and Katie settled in after moving back to Oregon. Having been back, sober and in love, pulled the family together in new ways. And Max and Ben, who had been so close in high school, got to hang out together again. I mean, they were best friends. They talked on the phone a lot. Like, I don't even know what they would talk about. That's Dara, Max's wife.

Max was two years older than Ben. I do know that every conversation they ever had, they always ended it, and they always told each other they loved each other. They always said, I love you. Which I feel like a lot of brothers don't do that. They're best friends. And Max always said, you know, Ben was his big little brother, you know, because Ben was always bigger than Max. Let me tell you what I learned about Max. If Ben was the old mellow soul, Max was animated, extroverted. He had eyeballs tattooed on his calves. Goofing one minute, serious the next. His nieces and nephews called him the funkle. He was prone to wearing tie-dye shirts and cut-off shorts. Max had a funny sense of style, if you want to call it style. Probably gym shorts, a t-shirt, maybe jean shorts, but he always wore short shorts.

Definitely see him in a tank top or no shirt. He typically had no shirt on. Max was the guy who would do a deep winter plunge into an icy pond on New Year's Day. Three, two, one! Just to make his family laugh. No, Max was definitely, he was voted class clown, so he was definitely like a jokester. Oh, was he? In high school? He did a backflip off the stage at graduation. So that's how, like, everyone remembers him.

Yeah. I mean, everyone will tell you, like, how silly he was and how goofy he was. But I think most people that know him will tell you, like, he had a heart of gold. You know, he would do anything for anyone. He definitely, like, loved fiercely. Like, there was no doubt in how much Max loved me. When he proposed to me, he ran us up the sign. On purpose?

Well, at the time I didn't know it was on purpose, so we got pulled over. Oh, it's a stunt. Yeah, so we got pulled over, and I'll show you the video. Pulled by Max? Yeah. All right, I'm going to have you come back here with me for a minute. You're showing something. Your license might be suspended out of California.

You know, so I, we go back behind the cop car and he's handcuffed in front. And I'm like, what on earth could you possibly done? And he said, The only thing I'm guilty of is stealing your heart. You want to get married? And grabbed down on one knee in handcuffs and said, You want health insurance? Are you being serious right now?

Is it a maybe? Oh my God, are you serious? Are you being serious right now? Is it a maybe? Oh my God, are you serious? Max and Dara had two young sons, Wild and Wrecker. And in the spring of 2022, the family had just opened their own business. Red Eye Pie and Frozen Fantasties.

A pizza and ice cream stand with a sliding service window, picnic tables outside, and kids' bikes strewn about. It was Max's idea. They served up an array of creative, some might say bizarre, pizzas with toppings like pierogies and spaghetti and meatballs. And were you on board with this whole restaurant scheme? Did I want to own a pizza and ice cream shop? No. But I've always told him, and I would tell anybody this,

like, I would never tell someone not to follow their dreams. I would never tell someone not to do something that they really want to do. And I was his wife, and I loved him, and it made him happy. So if that's what he wanted to do, I was going to support him 100%, and I did. What was the restaurant to Max in terms of his future? restaurant to max in terms of his future. He was hoping that our business could support our family and he could quit the refinery because he did not enjoy his time there. He felt unsafe and he wanted to have his own business with his name on it, and he wanted to be able to have it someday for our kids. He wanted out of the refinery. That's what he wanted. The refinery. Max had worked there since 2020.

It's one of the bigger employers in town. Workers without a college degree or much experience can pull in $140,000 a year, including overtime and bonuses. Max's job involved monitoring heavy machinery and pressure valves. It's a role the refinery calls outside operator. I spoke to Max's parents, Patty and Bob, and his sister Carolyn, as well as several of his friends and coworkers. They all mentioned Max's safety concerns about the refinery. He took off about a month of stress leave during the summer. They told me he clashed with bosses, and also with colleagues, over how he voiced complaints.

over how he voiced complaints. I mean, it's... It was obvious he hated working at the refinery. He made it very known that he did not want to work there forever and he was going to do anything he could to make a living for his family, but hopefully not there. Why did he hate it? I mean, he didn't feel safe. He used to tell me all the time that I had no idea how dangerous his job was.

Did he share his concerns, and did he feel that that was taken seriously? As far as he told me, he complained a lot at work about safety. He went to, you know, management or his bosses. You know, I don't know if they were taken seriously. You know, I don't know. He would, I really don't know. I couldn't determine whether any action was taken in response to Max's complaints.

In a statement, a company spokesperson said, quote, wherever we work, safety is BP's priority. We are determined to learn from last year's terrible accident at the Toledo refinery that resulted in the deaths of Ben and Max Morrissey. Do you feel that you know enough about what happened to Max and Ben that day and at the refinery? And do you want to know more? I mean, I want to know every single detail there is to know because we were there. We were in the hospital. We seen them suffering.

We seen what they looked like. We saw their burns. what they looked like. We saw their burns. So yeah, like it's not fair. So I want to know what happened. I want to know why it happened. I want to know why these people let this happen.

Like it should have never happened. It needs to never happen again. So what exactly went wrong? That's after the break. Looking for a change of scenery? Come on over. Let us give you the tour. Grab a paddle and explore. Hit the trails and go. When you're ready, kick back and call it a night.

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But a box fan? Happily, yes. A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details.

BP has spent years working to come out of the shadow of two deadly disasters. A 2005 explosion that ripped through the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas. The blast hit without warning, sending plumes of black smoke and flames high above the BP Emico refinery about 30 miles southeast of Houston. Fifteen workers died. More than 170 were injured. It's still one of the worst industrial disasters in recent U.S. history. Five years later, in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico... The rig was called the Deepwater Horizon, and as you can see, this thing is still burning, and it will burn at least throughout the day today.

The Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, which was operated by BP, exploded, killing 11 crew members. Which brings us to the explosion last year. To get a clearer picture of what happened at the refinery in Oregon, Ohio, I talked with dozens of people who had worked at the refinery or know how it operates. I sifted through hundreds of pages of documents, internal BP emails, records about refinery staffing, finances, maintenance, accident investigations. Let's start with what is not disputed. The blast centers on a substance called naphtha.

Naphtha is a liquid. It's produced through the distillation of crude oil. It is highly flammable, and on the evening of the blast, it was accumulating at a place, a vapor drum, where it wasn't supposed to be. By the time of the explosion, the refinery had experienced a day of cascading problems. But it was naphtha that formed the vapor cloud that caught on fire, killing Ben and Max. Now, let's go to BP's own non-public report. BP doesn't name Ben and Max, but it calls them outside operators. BP's findings say early that evening, the control room directed workers to drain the drum that was filling up with naphtha. The report says that the workers did not know that the liquid was naphtha.

did not know that the liquid was naphtha. After attempts to route the liquid to different places, the drum was still filling up too quickly, so the workers drained it directly to the ground. And according to the report, draining that liquid to the ground was against refinery rules. The BP report says the incident was, quote-unquote, caused by those outside operators draining liquid straight to the ground.

Those operators were Ben and Max, although again, not named. But that isn't the whole picture. Federal regulators have questioned whether workers ever should have been put in that position of draining that big vapor drum in the first place. They faulted BP for shortcomings in training and refinery procedures. Shortcomings that they say exposed workers to risks of fire and explosions. There are four other things I want to tell you about from my reporting, things that may have contributed to the explosion that night. The first thing to know is that the refinery is more than 100 years old. It's not uncommon for American refineries to date back to the Prohibition era, or even earlier.

A number of other refineries across the country are more than 100 years old. That's Donald Holmstrom, a former director of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. He led the agency's high-profile investigations into both the Deepwater Horizon and Texas City disasters. Again, those both involve BP. Donald says older refineries, especially those with a patchwork of older and newer equipment, increase risks. It presents a number of challenges. number of challenges, the metallurgy in the piping and equipment may not meet current standards or recommendations, cracking, corrosion, erosion, etc. And the older equipment gets, the more difficult

it is to be sure that you're finding all the different potential places where problems can occur. finding all the different potential places where problems can occur. Many of the original bones of these plants are antiquated. They've been expanded and modernized over the decades. This leads me to the second thing you need to know. About two months before the explosion, the refinery had emerged from a costly and complicated maintenance tune-up called a turnaround. Turnarounds are scheduled events where the plant or portions of the plant are shut down for a set period of time.

One of the most important things for a turnaround is to avoid what's called breakdown maintenance. A good analogy would be if you were making, let's say, a long distance trip in your car. Let's say you were going down to South America or you had a prolonged period where you were driving and you had to ensure that your car didn't have any mechanical breakdowns. You would want to inspect various parts of your car that may break down on that trip. You'd want to make sure that anything that was getting towards the end of its life was replaced. But turnarounds are also periods when problems can occur. As many as 50% of incidents, major incidents, occur during shutdown, startup, or abnormal conditions, operating conditions. BP's turnaround last year proved messy.

Over one 10-day period in July, the refinery suffered more than 20 instances known as loss of primary containment. That's the industry term for leaks and spills of toxic and non-toxic substances. Some workers in charge of operating equipment complained that supervisors were rushing safety checks or signing off on procedures that hadn't been completed, just to show they were hitting turnaround targets. This is according to private communications and people involved in discussions about the work. Taking the refinery offline was expensive. According to BP documents, the refinery lost more than $400 million

through the first seven months of the year, more than it had forecast. The company's new interim CEO told me this week that safety is the company's first priority and BP is, quote, learning from the terrible accident in Toledo. He also noted that the process

of streamlining refinery turnarounds is improving quarter to quarter. Most of the turnaround work wrapped up by the end of July. As the refinery ramped back up, problems continued. Workers struggled to regulate pressures and curb a buildup of liquids. And that leads to the third thing you need to know, process safety valve or PSV-1457. PSV-1457 was an early thing that went wrong that day. The valve's job is to release pressure to prevent damage to other equipment and keep people safe. But on the day of the accident, PSV 1457 wasn't able to handle the pressure.

That morning, it was shaking, violently, and those vibrations broke other stuff, including a nearby weld. When the weld broke, a gusher of naphtha spilled out. That was a different naphtha spill hours before the explosion. Workers suffered chemical burns. The spill and malfunctions led to decisions to shut down big pieces of machinery, but they did not shut down crude one. This all caused changes to how naphtha was flowing.

Eventually, it found its way to the wrong place, that vapor drum I mentioned earlier. It needed to be drained. According to BP's own internal assessment, the valve, PSV 1457, was at the root of the problems that morning. Refinery records show that the valve was, in fact, worked on during the turnaround.

But the company later determined that it wasn't configured correctly. Wrong design, wrong pressure rating. The fourth thing to know about the refinery that day was the level of confusion. Radios were malfunctioning. Workers say it was unclear at times who was in charge. Different supervisors gave overlapping and conflicting instructions, partly because they had incomplete knowledge of everything going wrong.

In the hours leading up to the explosion, a control room operator had made three requests to more senior employees to shut down heat sources feeding the central crude unit. That didn't happen. Without permission, he eventually moved to shut down key furnaces. But the situation was too far gone. But the situation was too far gone. BP's findings don't mention the repeated requests to shut down Crude One. Outside, black smoke was billowing from the furnace stack.

Workers I spoke with said the protective gear and breathing apparatuses that Ben and Max were wearing would have made it hard to smell or touch anything. Ben and Max also might not have been aware a vapor cloud was forming around them. When you're close to a vapor cloud, it can be hard to see. But other workers farther away saw it. Three federal agencies have issued final or preliminary findings about the explosion. One of the agencies is OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA identified 10 violations it called serious, including the failure to train workers about the presence of naphtha

and how to respond to other hazardous refinery conditions. BP says it's cooperating with accident investigations. The company has contested OSHA's findings. What happened that day didn't just come down to one thing that went wrong. There was an old refinery that had just gone through a turnaround. A faulty valve. An almost invisible, highly flammable substance pooling on the ground. Chaotic communication.

Decisions to keep operating. All of these factors led to that moment when Thomas Newman encountered Max Morrissey stumbling out of the fire. After Thomas extinguished the flames engulfing Max, he tried to get Max to a safer area. Max seemed in shock,

but he was also very much alert, talking. Thomas recounted the rest in his audio diary of that day. I looked up at the crude tower and I saw the crude tower starting to burn underneath the insulation. I was afraid it was going to rupture or explode, which I knew would kill us. So I took off, dragging Max out of there as hard as I could. And Max said, Tom, I can walk. Tom, I can walk. And Max was a tough guy. I thought, man, Max is going to make it. He's going to make it through this. It's going to be tough, but he's going to make it. I started walking Max to a safe location

where an ambulance could pick him up. While we were walking there, Max was screaming to me, Tom, call my wife. Tom, you gotta call my wife before I black out. Before I'm unconscious, you gotta call my wife. So I pulled out my phone, and Max told me his wife's phone number, cell phone number, and I called it.

And my phone started ringing, and I have an Apple Watch, so I could see it on my watch, but it was a number I didn't recognize, so I just ignored it and finished what I was doing with the boys. And his wife's phone number went to the voicemail. I hung up. Max said, call her again, call her again until she answers.

Keep calling her. And I called her again, and the second time I called her. The same number immediately called me back, and I thought that was kind of weird. So I just picked up my phone and answered it and all I heard was someone screaming so I said hello and I hear a very panicked man's voice and it was you know hi Dara this is Tom I work with Max I said there's been a bad accident here at the refinery. And Max is going to be leaving the refinery in an ambulance.

He's hurt real bad. And I think I said, you know, what do you mean he's hurt? And he just said, I don't know, he's hurt really bad. And I said, is he going to the hospital? And he said, I don't know, I got to get him out of here. I'll call you back. But he never said he was burned. He never said, he just said he's hurt. That's all he said.

And he said, I'll call you back. I hung up the phone, and Max was just screaming in the background still, just screaming. He was yelling, Tom, go find my brother. Go find my brother. Make sure he's all right. And my initial instinct was I'm going to call Ben

because he can help me maybe figure out who else can I call to figure out what really happened. I didn't know. So I immediately called Ben. He didn't answer. it really happened you know I didn't know so I immediately called Ben he didn't answer and then Carolyn sent a picture from her backyard of the refinery or a video you know of all the smoke and the fire and said should we be concerned? And I just remember, like, at that moment, like, my heart sank, like, holy shit, what is going on?

And I got him to 30th Avenue, and there was a bucket sitting there. And I'm like, Max, sit down on this bucket. I said, there's going to be an ambulance here soon to get you out of here. And he says, he just kept screaming at the top of his lungs. Tom, get me out of here. He said, I'm done with this place. Just get me out of here. I can't take this anymore. And he was just screaming at the top of his lungs in pain, screaming with all he had in him. And his eyes were just open wide, but it didn't look like he could see where he was going. And he was just so burnt.

And he said to me, he said, Tom, take pictures of me, Tom. Tom, take pictures. Damn it, you take pictures of me. You take pictures of me for my wife. So I took some pictures of Max like he asked. And he said, Tom, where's that rescue squad? Call them again. And I kept calling over the radio and calling over the radio that, man, we need this rescue squad now. I kept trying to call Max, kept trying to call Ben, you know,

trying to call somebody who was there. And obviously no one was answering. So we were almost to the hospital and Patty's phone rang and she answered it through her car. So it was speakerphone. And they said, this is Patty Morrissey. This is St. Vincent Hospital. We're calling to tell you we have your son. And we both kind of paused and they said, Ben Morrissey, this is St. Vincent Hospital. We're calling to tell you we have your son. And we both kind of paused and they said, Ben Morrissey.

And she pulled off the side of the road, like in disbelief. She said, well, is my other son there, Max? And they said, hold on, let me check. They put her on hold and they came right back and said, yes, he's here too. And they're both burned very badly. Got to the hospital and then went in and, you know, at that point they told us they were both still conscious, you know, talking, still conscious, you know, talking, communicating, but they were going to have to intubate them. You didn't know how bad it was? No. Oh, my God.

I had never, never crossed my mind that he was going to die. Either one of them. Never. I don't know anything about burns. I don't know. I do now. You know, we could only see their faces because they had them covered up. So when we finally got to see them, Ben's face was perfect. He didn't have any burns, you know, on his face. Where Max was burned head to toe.

And no, it was Max and Ben. They weren't going to die. They can't. They have kids. They have't. They have kids. They have wives. They're young. Like, no. They went to work, to work, and come home.

So, no. Never crossed my mind. The fact that Max and Ben had been lucid gave everyone hope, but the burns were too much. Both of the brothers faded overnight, dying minutes apart. After doctors informed Dara and Katie their husbands wouldn't make it, Katie let everyone know she was pregnant. She and Ben had only recently found out. Tom told us about helping Max after the explosion and the fire and Max asked Thomas

for three things. To call you, to find Ben, and to take photos of him, of Max. Why do you think he wanted Tom to take photos of him? So I could have them. So we wouldn't... So we could say, look what you did to him. He always told me BP was going to kill him. He told me that numerous times. So he obviously knew that if I ever needed those pictures for some reason to show or prove, you know,

exactly what he looked like before he went to the hospital. I don't know. Max was very smart. So, I mean, those pictures are god-awful. But, yeah, we have him. I don't know. It's been over a year now since the accident. Family members say they're all in therapy. Ben and Katie's daughter is now five months old.

How are you doing now? Like, how's the weight of it all and it's a lot and it hasn't gotten much easier i've just learned to kind of deal with it a little bit better. But I'm not okay. It's been really hard because he was my best friend. We did everything together.

And I definitely feel like a part of me. Has gone with him. But I carry on. Because. He would be carrying on if rules were reversed. He wouldn't sit upstairs and cry and not do anything and not get anything done. He would keep going. So I keep going. Thomas Newman, the BP worker who found Max, he hasn't worked since that day.

After making sure Max got out, Thomas went back to fighting the fire. Then he spent months fighting BP to get workers' compensation and help for post-traumatic stress disorder. He ultimately won on both fronts. BP no longer owns or operates the refinery. Just after the turnaround was finished, but before the explosion, the company announced it was selling its steak. That deal went through earlier this year. A couple of months ago, Max's and Dara's Pizza Shop celebrated Max's birthday. They had a special menu, and staff wore t-shirts in vivid tie-dye colors, emblazoned with the words,

Live Life to the max. For a short time, Dara closed the pizza shop. She thought about closing it for good. This had never been her dream, running a pizza shop and ice cream stand in Oregon, Ohio. But she reopened it. A brick-and-mortar memory of Max. Proof that Max did get to do what he loved.

Three, six, nine... Six. That's all for today, Friday, November 3rd. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Annie Baxter, Kylan Burtz, Katherine Brewer, Maria Byrne, Victoria Dominguez, The show is made by Ellen Rodriguez-Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Jonathan Sanders, Pierce Singey, Jivika Verma, Lisa Wang, Katherine Whalen, and me, Kate Linebaugh. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Nathan Singapak, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Fact-checking this week by Kate Gallagher and Sophie Hurwitz. Thanks for listening. See you Monday.