Employee burned in industrial accident at Spokane’s Waste-to-Energy Plant upgraded to serious condition

Craig Law, 39, an employee who was burned in an industrial accident at Spokane’s Waste-to-Energy Plant on Tuesday has been upgraded to serious condition and is breathing on his own.

Larry Pratt, 48, remains in critical condition.

Pratt and Law were performing routine maintenance inside one of the facility’s boilers when something went wrong and they were burned by steam. They were first taken to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and then transferred to Harborview, the region’s specialty trauma center.

An investigation of the accident has been opened by the state Department of Labor and Industries.

The city took over operation of the plant in November 2014 from the former operator, Wheelabrator, a subsidiary of Waste Management. And for the past five or six years, Fischer said the plant had recorded no safety issues or industrial accidents.