It will be twenty years since this summer: on July 30, 2004, 24 people lost their lives and more than 130 were injured, most of them burned, in the Ghislenghien disaster, the gas explosion at the Diamant Boart site.
Said was 34 years old and already working for the company and on site. In 2013, another explosion occurred. Diamant Boart de Ghislenghien had meanwhile become Husqvarna. As in 2004, Saïd was in the front row.
It was too much for the worker, who struggled to recover from the tragedy in 2004. Saïd was unable to recover and was never able to return to work. Said was now 43 years old. His wife left him. In difficulties, he turned to a specialized lawyer. The battle with the insurance companies began. It was to last ten years.
The Labor Court in Brussels has finally delivered its decision. It is a decision that will interest work accident victims. More than half a million occupational accidents are reported every year in Belgium.
20 years of the Ghislenghien disaster: The documentary “Ghislenghien, a day in hell” looks back at the tragedy that claimed 24 lives
Mental dullness
Saïd joined Diamant Boart as an 18-year-old in 1989 as a machine operator. On July 30, 2004, when the explosion happened at 8 o’clock, he was able to take shelter behind a wall, which protected him from severe burns. The psychic in particular had taken a hit. Several workmates had lost their lives, others had been horribly disfigured.
Through effort, Saïd was able to gradually regain the upper hand. The company had changed his assignment and transferred him to the packaging department. Saïd, who continued to present numerous symptoms of post-traumatic stress, remained under the care of psychiatrists.
Nitrogen gas
It was still there on November 7, 2013, when another explosion occurred at Diamant Boart. It took place in an oven near where Saïd was.
Nitrogen gas escaped. Colleagues reported that Saïd remained unresponsive, as if paralyzed, in a kind of mental stupor that would have prevented him from seeking shelter. Colleagues came to pick him up and took him to the hospital. He would no longer be able to return to work after 2013.
Ghislenghien disaster: memory remains intact
The victim taken into account
In the months that followed, the employer’s insurance company – AG Insurance – offered coverage that Saïd considered insufficient. Saïd spoke to Me Jean-Paul Tieleman. The lawyer had already defended several victims of the Ghislenghien disaster ten years earlier.
The procedure began in 2014. In 2018, the labor court in Brussels set the rate of permanent incapacity to work at 15%. Saïd, who expected better, appealed.
The Labor Court took over the case and a new legal expert was appointed. Said had to see an expert psychiatrist again to have his condition assessed.
The victims of the attacks in Brussels know: these investigations are very urgent. Every meeting is a challenge. You have to arm yourself mentally. Insurance companies juggling millions become lopsided and seek to minimize when it comes to claims. We have to provide proof of everything. The journey is particularly painful, and that is the interest of the case that has just been decided: justice has taken it into account for the benefit of the victim.
The expert notes that these procedures, which burden the victims, have caused Saïd, “in addition to a sense of incomprehension and injustice, a confusion between the status of victim and the status of suspect”.
From 15% to 100% The Labor Court limited the percentage of incapacity for work to 15%. On appeal, the expert now thinks, all things considered “the 2013 accident, nine years after the previous one, significantly reactivated the symptoms of post-traumatic stress that appeared after the 2004 disaster.“
For the legal expert, the two events showed similar characteristics – the two explosions took place at Diamant Boart in Ghislenghien and were caused by gas -, “the defense mechanisms put in place after the 2004 premiere were destroyed by the 2013 repeat and could have caused depression and what followed – financial loss, family separation, social isolation.”
While in 2018 the Labor Court awarded an unfortunate 15 percent of permanent incapacity, the Labor Court has just decided to grant 100 percent.
That is what the Court of Appeal considers “(Saïd’s) economic value is today reduced to nothing, in such a way that no profession is more accessible to him.”
In addition, the insurance company AG Insurance is ordered to cover all medical costs since the accident that occurred in Ghislenghien on 7 November 2013, as well as its paramedical and pharmaceutical costs. It is only too true that justice does not come quickly. The procedure certainly lasted ten years. But the wait was worth it.
