GRAYSON, Ky. — Four years after the collapse of an Adams County power plant robbed him of his legs and livelihood, Travis Miller is bracing for his day in court.
“They’re going to know who I am before it’s done,” said Miller, 42, of Grayson, Ky. “When they wake up in the morning, I want them to think, ‘Man, he didn’t give up.’”
Miller’s tenacity has served him well since December 9, 2020, when the 14-story Killen power plant tumbled to the ground with Miller and others inside. Two men, Jamie Fitzgerald and Doug Gray, died in the collapse. Miller required more than 100 surgeries and now walks with the aid of prosthetic devices and crutches.
“Travis is the strongest person I know,” said his wife, Alissa Miller. “I don’t know that anyone could withstand what he did.”
The Millers are preparing for another gargantuan battle as they try to force companies involved in the collapse to admit responsibility.
They’re alone in this fight. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration quietly settled its investigation with reduced penalties last year. The families of Gray and Fitzgerald signed confidential settlements this year.
The Millers doubled down on their quest by walking out of a court-ordered settlement conference in October. They replaced their lawyers with a new attorney who they expect will bring the case to trial in 2025.
They won’t say what offers they rejected or how much they’re seeking. But they insist it will take more than money to strike a deal.
“I just want them to own it,” Travis Miller said. “They need to say, ‘You know what? We could have done a lot of things different that could have prevented this.’ That’s what needs to happen.”
“We don’t have control over what happened,” Alissa Miller added. “We do have control over whether we keep our dignity or not.”
The WCPO 9 I-Team spent several weeks researching the Killen collapse because so much has happened since local media attention reached its peak in early 2021. Apart from the tumultuous court case, new details have emerged on the collapse itself.
OSHA records show there was confusion on the job site about who was in charge. Warning signs were ignored, including the partial collapse of a smaller building in August 2020. And then there were those 'spidey senses' that one supervisor allegedly used to dismiss employee complaints about shifting steel.
‘We were close as brothers’
For Travis Miller, the OSHA files are a painful reminder of a morning that haunts him. Not only was he trapped for hours under a mountain of debris with injuries that forced one amputation below the left knee and another at the right hip, but he emerged from the rubble with one of his best friends still inside.
Jamie Fitzgerald was buried for more than a month before his body was retrieved.
“I think about him a lot,” Travis Miller said, fighting back tears. “We were close as brothers. Probably closer than a lot of peoples’ brothers. He was always fun. You could be having the worst day and he’d do something that was just off the wall and you’d just start dying laughing at him. And I miss him, I do.”
Travis said Fitzgerald was uneasy on the morning of the collapse. Both were concerned about how the Killen job was managed.
“They had what they said was a safety man,” Travis Miller said. “But I was used to emergency personnel being ready and available.”
Travis Miller said he wasn’t aware that workers complained about a shifting column the night before and if Fitzgerald knew, he didn’t mention it on their drive to work. But Fitzgerald’s fiancée told the I-Team in 2021 that Jamie was worried about the cuts he and others were making to the boiler house.
“Nobody was inspecting the guys before they made these cuts,” Lora Conley said. “Jamie had made numerous comments about that.”
On the morning of the collapse, Travis Miller said Fitzgerald had a conversation with supervisor Sam Harmon. He doesn’t know what they discussed but Harmon’s message was clear.
“Our option was to go to work or go to the house,” Travis Miller said. “So, we chose to go to work.”
At 8:30 that morning, Travis Miller heard “a noise that was way out of the ordinary. And I turned. And I could see the building falling.”
He pushed a co-worker and told him to run. But when he “decided it was time for me to run, it was too late. It was on me. I remember falling, but I don’t know if it was something from the building (that) hit me or if I was just trying to get away and tripped over something.”
He was trapped in a space just a few feet high with a beam covering both legs. As rescuers worked frantically to reach him, they rigged a radio with a cell phone so Miller could call his wife.
“I was literally on the brink of death,” Travis Miller said. “I was laying there, feeling my organs shut down. I mean, I knew I was dying. I knew it. I made a phone call to (Alissa). You don’t know what it’s like to have to make that phone call.”
His astonishing medical recovery was well-documented by UC Medical Center, which used his story in public relations and marketing campaigns that highlight its capabilities as the region’s only adult Level 1 trauma center.
The short version goes like this: He had a 3 percent chance of survival when he was air-lifted from the Killen plant site. Four months later, he walked for the first time, with the use of parallel bars and a prosthetic device.
Every day since then, he has worked to remove the limitations that came with his injuries. He spent weeks to secure a driver’s license for a pickup truck with hand controls for its brake and accelerator. He modified a golf cart so he could press the accelerator with his right hand while steering with the left.
When he confronts a new challenge, “I never tell myself I can’t do it. I tell myself, ‘I can do that. It may look funny and it may look a lot different than everybody else. But I can still do it,’” Miller explained.
And each time he succeeds, he gains new admiration from Melissa.
“He’s done it gracefully. He’s done it quietly. And he’s done it with a lot of dignity,” she said. “And that dignity, those two companies will never take.”
‘The cold hard truth’
The I-Team is revisiting the Killen collapse because it raises important questions about workplace safety, power plant closures and employee rights.
For example, their case could expand the rights of employees to sue companies over workplace injuries. Since 2005, Ohio contractors have been protected by state law that requires injured employees to prove “a deliberate intent” to cause injury when suing for damages.
“It’s a pretty high hurdle to say that a demolition contractor deliberately intended to cause death or injury to its employees,” attorney Thomas Yocum told the I-Team in 2022. “That’s the high hurdle the plaintiffs have in this case.”
To clear that hurdle, the Millers are pursuing a “co-employee intentional tort” claim that alleges several Adamo Demolition Company managers “took extraordinary steps to excessively weaken and destabilize the structure” to avoid the cost of explosive demolition. Adamo and its subcontractor denied the allegations while asking Adams County Judge Brett Spencer to dismiss Miller’s complaint.
In September 2023, Spencer refused, saying it contained “extensive detailed allegations, that if true, establish that the moving co-employees acted with the requisite legal intent to cause injuries.” That doesn’t mean the Millers will ultimately prevail, but it kept the claim alive for a jury to decide.
Beyond that legal issue, the Killen collapse itself raises questions about the use of private investors to clean up coal-burning power plants after utilities close them. As the I-Team reported in 2021, the owner of the Killen plant had demolition problems at two other Ohio plants since 2015. Those problems included a smokestack that tumbled into the Ohio River at the Beckjord power plant in 2021 and the death of Adamo’s former CEO during the collapse of a bridge at the former Muskingum River plant near Beverly, Ohio.
Corporate affiliates of Missouri-based Commercial Liability Partners were named by the Millers as plaintiffs in their lawsuit, which alleges CLP and its affiliates “actively participated” in the demolition. The company has denied liability in court filings.
The Millers also question the effectiveness of OSHA, the workplace safety regulator that settled its case without determining what caused the collapse.
Their concerns come at a time of increasing dissatisfaction with government regulators, which the U.S. Supreme Court, President-elect Donald Trump and many others have criticized as too aggressive.
The Millers argue OSHA wasn’t aggressive enough.
“I feel like the investigation was done poorly, very poorly,” Alissa Miller said. “They stated that they interviewed everyone who was on the job site that day. That is not the case. Had they interviewed everyone there, I feel like all the pieces of the puzzle would have been placed together rather nicely.”
OSHA declined interview requests for this story, but an expert told the I-Team that OSHA likely settled because it couldn’t prove its original claim that Adamo Demolition Company committed a willful violation. That’s the most serious violation that OSHA cites, reserved for companies that “knowingly failed to comply” or “acted with plain indifference to employee safety.”
Curtis Chambers, founder of an OSHA training consulting firm in Dallas, said injured workers are often disappointed by the agency.
“This is the cold hard truth, OK? People think that OSHA is there to determine liability for personal injury, and they are not. They are there to determine if an employer violated one of these rules in our book, and that's it,” Chambers said.
‘It was poorly managed’
The I-Team asked Chambers to review OSHA records, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request. The records show the Killen collapse was preceded by other problems, including the partial collapse of a smaller building in August 2020 and confusion over who was in charge.
“It was poorly managed for sure,” Chambers said. However, “the reason it happened, we don't know. We'll never know, regardless of what the trials say.”
OSHA filed four violations against Adamo Demolition Company and three against its subcontractor, SCM Engineer Demolition Inc. OSHA initially sought penalties totaling $194,012 against the Michigan-based contractors, but fines were later reduced to $70,692 in negotiated settlements.
In February 2021, OSHA filed the case’s first violation, alleging Adamo failed to document an injury on August 12, 2020. The details of that injury weren’t publicly known until now.
“An employee designated as a burner was performing demolition work removing precipitators under the supervision of the Superintendent Mr. Sam Harmon,” an OSHA inspector wrote. “When the building started to collapse, the employee ran on unleveled dirt … that resulted in a sprain right ankle.”
That incident was followed by another problem in October, when “the west precipitator’s house was pulled over and failed to completely collapse requiring employees to have to re-enter to perform additional cuts on a compromised structure.”
OSHA rules require demolition projects to be inspected “by a competent person … to detect hazards resulting from weakened or deteriorated floors, or walls, or loosened material. No employee shall be permitted to work where such hazards exist until they are corrected by shoring, bracing, or other effective means.”
OSHA initially determined that Adamo Superintendent Sam Harmon was the project’s designated competent person, but inspection records show there was confusion on this point.
Adamo Project Manager Mike Brehse told OSHA he shared that role with Harmon. Harmon and Brehse also said they relied on the expertise of SCM founder Steve Murray, whose website offers 18 YouTube videos of buildings blowing up and the slogan, ‘Light ‘er up.’ Adamo employees told OSHA that Murray and one of his employees instructed them on where to cut support beams in the Killen plant’s 14-story boiler house.
Such cuts are a common practice in explosive demolitions. They’re intended to weaken a structure so it falls in a controlled way when charges are lit. The job requires “extreme caution” and “should be directed by a structural engineer or a competent person,” according to standards published by the National Demolition Association.
“I did not develop the plan to take down the boiler room,” Sam Harmon told OSHA. “That was our sub, SCM, Steve Murray. All I did was give him personnel and equipment.”
Murray’s attorney offered this explanation to OSHA: “Adamo maintained the safety program in connection with the project and SCM complied with it.”
No matter who was in charge, an OSHA engineer found flaws in the plan.
“The cutting operations in preparation of blasting were not directed by a structural engineer or a competent person qualified to direct the removal of structural elements. Both Adamo and SCM produced exhibits for a blasting plan, but the plans were not produced/reviewed by persons competent in structural assessment, and cutting in preparation of blasting had clearly been performed before both plans were produced.”
‘Spidey senses’
All of that set the stage for a last-minute warning by workers that the building was unstable. Records show Harmon and Murray brushed off that warning on December 8, 2020, the night before the fatal collapse.
“Employees had reported a structural column of the boiler plant appeared to be failing as twisting/bowing of the column could be observed,” an OSHA inspector wrote. “The column appeared to have shifted off of its base and unusual settling noises were heard. Representatives from Adamo and Steve Murray observed the column and determined that it did not pose a risk to the employees.”
Murray told inspectors: “Columns always do that when you cut.” He also said he didn’t inspect the column up close.
"They were supposed to be putting a T-cut in,” Murray told OSHA. “I didn't go up and inspect it, no. You couldn't see it. It was like 20 feet up in the air."
Harmon also viewed the column from afar.
“After Sam inspected the site, employees heard Sam over the radio (saying) that his ‘spidey senses’ say the building would not move,” OSHA inspectors wrote.
Chambers said OSHA reports are not conclusive on whether the column caused the collapse, but he was unequivocal in his criticism of the inspection that took place that day.
“No one did what a competent person should have done,” Chambers said. “When they reported the steel was twisting, they should have gone up and looked at it.”
How settlements altered OSHA violations
The incident led to a willful violation for Adamo, with OSHA alleging its “competent person when told of hazards … is not ensuring employees are restricted from entering a hazardous area.” That violation was later revised to say Adamo “did not ensure that the continuing inspections made by the competent person … were fully documented."
OSHA did not respond to I-Team questions, including why it reduced the violation from willful to serious, and downsized Adamo’s fine from $136,532 to $15,625. But Alissa Miller said OSHA’s top local official told her that he disagreed with the reduction.
“He explained to me that it was willful,” Alissa Miller said. “When they went to mediation, that changed.”
She talked to Ken Montgomery, OSHA’s Cincinnati area director, in a phone call last summer. He told her witnesses, including her husband, did not provide testimony OSHA needed to sustain the willful violation. She isn’t buying it.
“Two men lost their lives. Children lost their dads. Parents lost their children. When you weigh that against a paperwork violation? It’s maddening,” she said.
Chambers thinks Adamo’s attorneys successfully argued that its subcontractor was the “competent person” in charge of the project, making it harder for OSHA to sustain a willful violation against the company.
“Their goal was to get rid of that word willful,” Chambers said. “And to get rid of any statements saying they were in charge as a competent person, we're going to shift all this over here to SCM.”
Chambers also identified other problems with OSHA’s case, including one violation that cited the wrong statute.
“They cited them under the OSH Act of 1970,” Chambers said. “That's called the general duty clause. You can't cite that if there's an actual standard that applies.”
The settlement changed the violation to a different statute and alleged “the employer did not fully document its determination that the blaster was qualified,” while increasing the penalty from $13,653 to $15,625.
Adamo also convinced OSHA to drop a repeat violation alleging “Adamo does not ensure that their employees are instructed in the recognition and avoidance of unsafe conditions or other hazards while conducting explosive preparation.” It was cited as a repeat violation because Adamo Industrial Services Inc. was cited for the same thing in 2016, after a coal conveyor bridge collapsed during an explosive demolition at the Muskingum River power plant.
Chambers said “the circumstances need to be the same” for a repeat violation to be sustained. OSHA cited a different Adamo corporate entity at Muskingum River and SCM wasn’t the explosive demolition subcontractor in that incident. Dropping the repeat violation reduced Adamo’s fine from $30,037 to $15,625.
The settlement requires Adamo to seek “opinion and analysis” from a structural engineer on “all projects under OSHA Region V’s jurisdiction where the demolition of the structure will be done using explosives.” It also requires Adamo to “permit warrantless inspections” so OSHA can verify it’s using engineers on such projects through June 30, 2025.
Chambers said OSHA attorneys likely concluded the case wasn’t strong enough to risk losing at trial, so they tried to “make sure we get things done here to make the workplace safer.”
SCM also won reduced penalties in its settlement with OSHA, but it wasn’t required to make any future changes. Its total fines dropped from $12,288 to $8,192.
One of OSHA’s original violations said SCM "did not ensure the cutting operations … were directed by a structural engineer or competent person qualified to direct the removal of structural elements." That violation was deleted in the final settlement.
Another violation said “SCM's owner/operator Steve Murray did not ensure employees were restricted from accessing the hazardous area until the hazards were corrected.” That was revised in the settlement to remove Murray’s name.
Can they win?
No trial date is set for Travis Miller's lawsuit, although the judge has offered three possible dates for a two-week trial that would start between July 28, 2025 and January 12, 2026.
Chambers thinks the Millers have a “pretty good” case against the companies, based on his review of the OSHA files. But he cautions that workplace injury cases take lots of time and money to win, based on his experience as an expert witness in such cases.
“I’m working on a wrongful death case right now that the gentleman was killed 12 years ago and I haven’t even been deposed yet,” Chambers said. “They just keep kicking the can down the road.”
Chambers also thinks the companies have a strong common-sense argument against the idea that the collapse was deliberately intended to harm employees.
“If they willfully said we're going to collapse this building accidentally, (they would) make sure nobody's in there,” Chambers said. “Otherwise, everything that they saved, getting it done a few days earlier, they more than spent trying to defend this.”
In court filings, the companies have argued the collapse was an “act of God” and specifically deny allegations that its employees intended to harm others.
“Plaintiff’s injuries arise out of the sudden and unexpected collapse of the Killen Generating Station,” said one motion, filed in March 2023. “Plaintiff has not alleged any facts to suggest the co-employee defendants intended to cause plaintiff emotional distress … nor which of the co-employee defendants intended to do so and through what ostensible means.”
Settling the case could also be problematic for the Millers, based on recent court filings.
On Dec. 3, Judge Brett Spencer ordered one-third of any settlement or verdict in the case to be held in a trust account for payment of the Millers’ current and past lawyers. Last October, the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation asked Judge Spencer to approve a $2.7 million lien against future settlements or judgments. The filing says the bureau is entitled to repayment of $1.2 million in medical expenses and $297,333 in disability pay plus $1.2 million for the “estimated future costs” of Miller’s workers compensation account.
Those filings mean that if he settled for $5 million today, Travis Miller would receive only $650,000 to cover his medical care and living expenses for the rest of his life. That amount could dissipate quickly, when you consider that one of Miller’s prosthetic legs cost $125,000.
“We just want to be able to make sure my husband has the ability to do what he wants to do, to go where he needs to go,” Alissa Miller said. “We have to worry about those type of things.”
Beyond the money matters, Travis Miller said he feels an obligation to Jamie Fitzgerald and Doug Gray to be a “voice of reason” on their behalf.
“Every time I look at my kids, I think about those other two fellows. Truly. Every single day,” Travis Miller said. “If it goes to trial and I walk out of there with nothing, I will stand and say I fought. I can stand and say they didn’t take everything away from me.”
