Burned refinery worker dies 6 months after blast

Savannah — Malcolm Frazier fought for more than six months to heal the burns covering 85 percent of his body, while his father sang hymns beside his hospital bed daily.

Frazier’s battle ended Friday when he died at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, nearly 200 days after he was gravely injured in the Feb. 7 explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery near Savannah. His passing brought the death toll from the blast to 14.

“There wasn’t a dry eye on the unit this morning,” said Dr. J.R. Shaver, the doctor who tried to revive Frazier when his heart stopped beating. “He’d been close to death many times, but this time he was about as severe as he could be.”

Frazier, 47, of Savannah worked as a floor manager in the refinery’s packing department, which took the brunt of the explosion when sugar dust ignited like gunpowder beneath the refinery’s silos.

A co-worker pulled Frazier, who had worked at the plant for about four months, from the blast wreckage. Suffering deep burns on his face, chest and back, he was among the most seriously injured who survived the explosion.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration last month proposed $8.7 million in fines against Sugar Land.

Frazier’s heart stopped beating and the medical staff turned off the ventilator that had helped him breathe, Shaver said.

Frazier’s father, he said, stood by the bed and caressed his son’s head as he told him, “You fought for your Daddy. You fought so hard.”