AP Features, August 15th, 2007
Lawyers for a tow truck driver badly burned in last month's Manhattan steam pipe explosion went to court Wednesday seeking an injunction to keep utility company Consolidated Edison from destroying evidence at the scene.
Ken Thompson, a lawyer for injured driver Gregory McCullough, said he was seeking the injunction in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn to keep the utility from dismantling a steam trap near the crater gouged out by the blast.
Henry Miller, a lawyer for Con Ed, said the utility is just trying to find answers.
"Con Ed will do nothing in secret," he said outside court. "We want to get to the bottom of it just like everyone else."
Lawyers for Tanya McCullough-Stewart, the tow truck driver's mother, also called for an independent investigation into the July 18 blast that sent a geyser of debris and asbestos soaring hundreds of feet into the sky, saying Con Ed cannot be trusted to investigate itself.
Con Edison hired an engineering firm to study what caused the explosion, and has said that members of the state Public Service Commission _ which oversees the private utility _ along with city officials and insurance companies were participating in the probe.
McCullough, 21, suffered third-degree burns over 80 percent of his body and is still in a hospital burn unit, where he has been placed in a medically induced coma to control his pain and has undergone surgery to remove dead skin.
His passenger, Judith Bailey, 30, suffered burns to more than 30 percent of her body. She was released from a hospital last week.
