Asbestos cleanup worker burned in chemical fire

Bigfork native Ken Williams left for work Sept. 6 with his dog in his truck, headed down to Polson. Williams had been employed by an asbestos removal company for about two months, a job he enjoyed. He left work that day in an ambulance, burnt by chemical fire. 

As part of the asbestos removal process, workers were applying chemical to an adhesive used to hold the old tiles in place at a commercial building in Polson. A buffer was used to break up the black goo.  

Williams is unsure whether the chemicals or the buffer caused the spark, but in an instant, the buffer was on fire.  

“Before I could react, everything went boom,” he said.  

The explosion blew Williams back and he slipped and fell as the work area went up in flames. He kept his eyes shut tight and his mouth closed to avoid being blinded or breathing the fumes as he stumbled out of the building. 

“I had a lot of adrenaline going through me, so I really didn’t realize I was hurt,” Williams said. 

The workers moved their equipment and vehicles away from the smoking building and were assessing the damage as help arrived. The Polson Fire Department was dispatched and ambulances arrived to tend to the crew. Two other workers were also injured in the fire and transported to a hospital with burn injuries.  

Williams was flown to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center burn unit in Idaho Falls.  

“The flight out here was actually pretty fun,” Williams said. “The Polson doctors were super friendly, they felt so bad and wished they could have done more.” 

He underwent surgery to repair the skin on his hands, legs and face. A stem cell mask has been placed over his face and cadaver skin on his hands and legs to trigger his skin to regenerate, with an undetermined timeline on healing. 

The areas protected by his clothing, such as his legs, are already having the cadaver skin removed, which is promising. A line across the top of Williams’s forehead shows where his hat protected him from the chemical fire.

Williams asked that the company he worked for be kept anonymous. He said he believed the accident to be the result of noncommercial chemical use.  

“Whatever job you’re doing, if your boss or your superior tries to cut corners, don’t try to appease them, because you’ll end up in the burn unit,” Williams said.  

“It’s a shame they had to find out the hard way like this and I had to also, but at the end of the day, now I’ve learned my lesson,” he added. 

Williams will have to go through physical therapy to regain the use of his hands. His right can almost make a closed fist now, but the left is still a work in progress. The tendons in his legs remain tightened from the incident, and he has trouble standing up once crouched. His doctors have suggested therapy.

“Every time I go to sleep, the scenario goes through and I think I’m on fire and wake up thinking I’m dead,” Williams said.  

Workman’s comp will not equate to full wages and Williams expects to pay for physical therapy out-of-pocket.  

“Kenny is a devoted father and loves anything outdoors. He truly enjoys fishing,” Williams’ wife Brittney Bradford wrote on GoFundMe. “Sadly, all of it will have to be put on hold as he has a long and hard recovery ahead of him. The lack of income is going to dent and put a difficult strain on our lives.” 

Williams thanked Bradford, who raced down the lake from Columbia Falls to fly with him on the helicopter to Idaho, as well as the surgeon and staff at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center for their help in his recovery.  

“I’m hoping to go back to work as soon as I can, really,” Williams said. 

Williams’s GoFundMe is available at https://www.gofundme.com/f/stay-with-husband-during-burn-recovery.