Left, John Amig Sr. holds a plaque during a Local 410 and BGE ceremony to name his son’s workplace and the road to it after the fallen welder. Right, Local 410 members help Amig’s grandson reveal the new John Amig Jr. Way street sign.
As a certified welder, Baltimore Local 410’s John Amig Jr. was keenly aware of how dangerous repairing a broken natural gas line can be.
“Certified welders do underground work and fabrication for the gas infrastructure,” explained Local 410 Assistant Business Manager Chris Kasecamp. “They’ll weld new gas mains together, and they’ll go out and repair existing ones with pressurized live gas inside.”
Because of experts like Amig, a graduate of York County (Pa.) School of Technology’s welding program, catastrophic on-the-job accidents are rare. Amig brought his decades of experience to Baltimore Gas and Electric in 2016, one year before Local 410 was chartered by the IBEW to represent the utility’s workers.
“John came to the BGE system and learned it,” said Kasecamp, who had worked alongside Amig on a handful of jobs. “Keep in mind, some of BGE’s gas infrastructure is 200 years old. There’s a lot to learn, and you’re always coming across lots of different things.”
On a warm and sunny Friday afternoon in May 2021, the 51-year-old Amig and two other crew members came across a leaky old fitting on a steel gas main in the northern Baltimore suburb of Pikesville.
“Unless there’s some kind of tribal knowledge, you really don’t know much about it,” Kasecamp said.
But even though Amig carried with him the proper skills and years of know-how, something went wrong as the crew went about excavating the main and sealing the leak.
“The pipe blew apart with John in the hole, lighting off with him in it,” Kasecamp said.
A conference room at Local 410’s new union hall now bears Amig’s name.
Amig, meanwhile, was flown by helicopter to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore for treatment by the staff of its adult burn center. The welder had sustained severe burns over 80% of his body.
Quickly, Amig’s co-workers pulled him out of the fiery trench and rendered first aid. Within minutes, a fleet of fire and rescue units responded to treat Amig’s injuries. They also spent nearly four hours trying to extinguish the gas-fed fire that occasionally shot flames into the air as high as 60 feet.
“This wasn’t a safety failure or about not having proper equipment,” said Local 410 Assistant Business Manager Brian Terwilliger, who noted that no one has ever determined the explosion’s ignition source. “This was just a freak accident — a really sad, tragic story, completely unexpected.”
“A one-in-a-million kind of thing,” Kasecamp added.
The injuries proved too severe, and Amig died in the hospital on Aug. 23, 2021.
Almost immediately after their brother’s accident, members of Local 410 rallied together to raise more than $57,000 through an online fundraising campaign to help Amig’s family cope with any financial burdens that might arise while the welder underwent treatment in the burn unit.
The members were just getting started.
Six days after Amig’s passing, with COVID-19 infections still a global concern, Local 410’s leaders offered his family the use of Baltimore’s Local 24 spacious union hall for a celebration of his life and a visitation with the family beforehand.
Afterward, many members remained in touch with Amig’s widow, Angelique.
“One of the things we talked to her about was, we wanted to do something in John’s name to honor him and keep his memory alive,” Kasecamp said. “She said that one of the biggest things the Burn Center struggles with is having enough blood” to use during routine medical treatments and for emergencies.
Johns Hopkins, like many hospitals across the U.S., relies on blood and blood products that are donated to the American Red Cross. But the agency frequently experiences shortages of all types of blood, especially O-negative blood, which can be given to anyone.
“She said that an annual blood drive would be incredible because it could help out people just like John,” Kasecamp said.
Working with representatives from Johns Hopkins and the Red Cross, Local 410’s leaders set about planning, scheduling and promoting an inaugural memorial drive in Amig’s name, held over two days last October in a nearby fire department’s hall.
“I think we had over 60 donors,” Kasecamp said, noting that the Red Cross estimates that each pint of donated blood can save up to three lives. “We ended up getting shirts made for anybody who donated,” featuring Amig’s name on the front and back.
The blood drive’s turnout was so good that the local has already started planning the second annual drive for October, he said.
“It’s something that we want to keep doing, too,” Terwilliger said. “We do gas and electric, and no matter what the accident is, if something happens, you’re probably going into the burn center, whether it’s for a flash or for a burn from a gas fire.”
There have been other enduring efforts to honor the Local 410 welder. Shortly after Amig’s death, for example, Business Manager Woody Jacobs and other leaders from the local sat down with representatives from BGE. “They were looking to do something to honor John, as well,” Kasecamp said.
The parties landed on renaming the weld shop where Amig worked — part of BGE’s Spring Garden service facility campus in south Baltimore — after him, along with the street that leads to the shop. A ceremony in 2022, attended by dozens of Local 410 members plus representatives from Amig’s family and BGE, formalized the names of the Amig Weld Shop and John Amig Jr. Way.
“While we cannot go back to change that day, we honor John by looking forward, we watch our brothers’ and sisters’ backs, and we question critical steps,” Jacobs said at the event. “These dedications will forever keep John’s memory alive.”
The local’s office conference room has also been dedicated to Amig. “Our charity committee is also in the early stages of organizing a Local 410 memorial golf outing to honor all of our members who have died on the job,” Kasecamp said.
He also noted that Amig’s daughter Hannah, who is set to graduate high school this spring, is honoring her father by following in his footsteps. With charitable help from Local 410’s membership to pay her tuition, Hannah has been taking classes at a nearby Earlbeck Welding School campus.
“There is nothing more important to the IBEW than making sure every single one of our members goes home safe at the end of every workday,” said Fourth District International Vice President Gina Cooper, who retired April 1. “But when something unthinkable like this happens, nobody does more to commemorate victims like John, and to rally around their families, than the men and women of our great union.”
