Jury awarded $118 million in damages to 7 victims of 2020 Watson Grinding explosion

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- On Thursday, a Harris County jury awarded $118 million in damages to seven victims of the Watson Grinding explosion. The explosion at the Watson Grinding plant on Gessner near Clay in January 2020 damaged hundreds of homes, killed three people, and injured more than a dozen. "I was blown into a standing position out of my bed," Alicia Detamore, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said. Detamore and her roommate, Suzanne Slavinsky, were forced to leave their home for over a year. The blast was later traced to a loose hose leaking propylene, which the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said ignited when a Watson Grinding employee flipped a light switch. Investigators say the plant's gas detection system never sounded, which is why attorneys sued 3M, the company responsible for inspecting it. They say a 3M technician gave the gas detection system the all-clear just six months before the explosion. "What you've done is you've slapped a sticker on it. You said that it's good to go and it was never good to go," attorney Ryan Loya said. Attorneys say a red 'out of service' tag should have been placed on the gas detection system, alerting plant employees that the system wasn't functioning. "Such a simple job as to seeing it's not working and all you have to do is put a red tag on it? And you could have saved all of this. Our worlds will never be the same," Slavinsky said. One woman was left with long-term brain damage. Slavinsky and Detamore say they suffer from PTSD. "How many companies across the country are relying on them to make things safe, and right now, are they safe?" Detamore said. 3M sent Eyewitness News the following statement: "We disagree with the verdict in this case and believe that it is unsupported by the evidence and the law. We will be appealing." However, attorneys say the evidence shows 3M's technician didn't act in a reasonable manner. "He sat on the stand," attorney Robert Kwok said. "He wouldn't make any kind of eye contact with the jury. He would just look down and he seemed pretty defeated in his testimony."