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Daughter of Napoleon man killed in junkyard explosion files lawsuit

Attorneys for the woman say the junkyard caused the explosion by failing to take necessary safety precautions.

NAPOLEON (WTOL) - The daughter of a Napoleon man killed in a junkyard explosion has filed a lawsuit against the company.

READ full lawsuit here

Jeffery Keehn, 41, was killed in November 2017 while working at Hogrefe Auto Parts.

Keehn was using a torch to cut parts off a pickup when gasoline vapors ignited, causing a fire and explosion.

Keehn, who was still underneath the vehicle at the time, was killed in the fire that spread to three other vehicles and other equipment on the property. Nearby businesses also felt the explosion.

Attorneys for the man’s daughter say the cause of the fire was the fault of Hogrefe Auto Parts for not removing the fuel tank or draining it of gasoline before Keehn started to work on the vehicle.

“This was a completely preventable tragedy,” says attorney Katie Harris, one of the lawyers for Keehn’s estate. “Hogrefe Auto Parts and the people who run it should never have put someone in the position of using a torch in circumstances where it could ignite gasoline and explode like this."

More information on Hariss’s work can be found here.

"Instead of taking simple safety precautions, they let Jeffery Keehn use a torch on the underside of a truck that still had gasoline in it without warning him. Because of that he suffered enormously and died a terrifying death that was 100 percent avoidable.”

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