Man tells court he was sprayed with cleaner fluid by oilfield co-worker, then ‘went up in flames’

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This article was published 23/05/2017 (2529 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man who was set on fire while working in the oilfield recounted the horror as he testified in court.

Glenn Finlayson testified that a former friend and co-worker sprayed him with flammable brake cleaner fluid, apparently as a joke, then approached him while flicking a lighter.

“All I can remember is he got closer to me and I went up in flames,” Finlayson testified.

Justin Robert Lundstrom, 33, is on trial on counts of aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

The trial began on Monday in Brandon Court of Queen’s Bench with testimony by the man who was burned in the July 30, 2012 incident.

Finlayson described how he, Lundstrom, Mackenzie Miller, and another worker were at an oil well site in the RM of Archie, just east of the Saskatchewan boundary.

They were there to flush out a well head, but were on downtime — they were either waiting for acid used to flush the well to be delivered, or the acid had already been pumped into the well and they were waiting for it to do its job.

Finlayson testified that he entered a small operator’s shack to find that Lundstrom had used a marker to draw penises on his hard hat as a joke.

Finlayson asked Miller to retrieve some brake cleaning fluid that came in an aerosol can. He said he used small amounts of the chemical to wipe the marker off his hard hat.

The four workers then sat in the shack and talked.

They were fooling around as they waited to work, and Miller and Finlayson said Lundstrom picked up the aerosol can and sprayed the brake cleaner fluid at the crotch of Finlayson’s coveralls to make it look like he’d wet himself.

Both witnesses said the can was marked to indicate that its contents were flammable.

Somehow, the conversation then turned to whether the coveralls that the workers wore were flame retardant.

Finlayson and Miller said Lundstrom walked toward Finlayson as he flicked a lighter and made a comment about wondering what would happen if he lit the lighter.

Finlayson said Lundstrom, as he approached, lit the lighter with flame, and then let it die at least once. Miller said that he believed Lundstrom had merely sparked the lighter.

But by both accounts, Finlayson’s coveralls burst into flame when Lundstrom moved close to him.

Finlay recalled screaming as his torso was instantaneously covered in flame.

“I’m running around, I’m thinking — this is it, I’m done,” Finlayson said.

Finlayson said Miller and the other worker were trying to help him get out off his burning coveralls and pat out the flames.

But Lundstrom didn’t help, Finlayson testified: “I can remember him laughing.”

Finlayson was taken to the medical shack and then to hospital with second-degree burns to his hands, lower stomach and crotch.

One of his burned hands needed plastic surgery, and he had to undergo physiotherapy to bring strength back to his hands.

His right hand has largely recovered, but it was a year before he could use his left one, Finlayson said.

Two fingers on his left hand still trouble him. They’re sensitive to the cold, and he feels pain in an air conditioned room. He can no longer ride a motorcycle as he used to do, because his hand now falls asleep.

Miller testified that, shortly after the incident, Lundstrom asked him to lie and say Finlayson had lit himself on fire.

During cross-examination, Lundstrom’s lawyer, Kim Ross, suggested that Finlayson and Miller had made a mistake by bringing the brake cleaner into the enclosed shack.

He suggested to Finlayson that he, Miller and the other co-worker made up the allegations against his client to avoid getting into trouble.

Finlayson denied the suggestion, pointing out that he didn’t have to worry about his job because he never worked for the same company again.

Ross also suggested his client wasn’t in the room when Finlayson had cleaned his helmet with flammable liquid. Ross suggested Finlayson had sprayed himself with the fluid as he held the hard hat in his lap.

Finlayson and Miller, however, were firm in their account that Lundstrom was in the room when Finlayson used the chemical to clean the hard hat. Finlayson said he had put his helmet on a counter to clean it, not in his lap.

The trial is scheduled for four days and continues on Wednesday.

» ihitchen@brandonsun.com