LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The family of a Louisville man have more questions than answers nearly a week after a deadly explosion at the Givaudan Sense Colour factory.
The explosion last Tuesday left 11 people injured and two dead, including 49-year-old Keven “KD” Dawson. The U.S. Army veteran worked for the Swiss-based company for a year and would have celebrated his 50th birthday on Sunday.
Dawson’s longtime girlfriend Malaika Watson described him as “loving” and “very timely.” She said he went to work that day, but something felt different.
It wasn’t until she was picking up her son from school around 4 p.m. that she saw a notification on her phone about the explosion on Payne Street.
“I knew the address. I Googled it a hundred times,” she said.
Since her son wasn’t ready, Watson said she made plans for family members to pick him up.
“I gotta go get my boyfriend. I gotta get him out of there,” she recalled.
About a half-hour later, Watson made it to the scene, but had a hard time getting through. She was escorted to an area where employees who were in the blast were congregating.
Watson was told from an employee there were no casualties, and everyone had been accounted for. Still, she said, there were no answers as to KD's location.
Officers at the scene told her she would need to go to the hospital to see if he was injured, and gave her three different hospitals to check. Watson had a feeling something wasn’t adding up however, and said she felt there was a chance he may have been left behind at the factory.
“I went to the hospital. I went to every hospital," Watson said. "I didn’t make it back until 7 o’clock. [They] said, ‘go home’ and I told [them] "no, you go home. I’m going to get KD.' I went back to the scene; the gentleman called me, and he said, ‘Are you going back?’ I said I’m here and I’m going to get him.”
Watson walked around with a gut feeling of KD still being inside. After being denied access to the rubble, she said she ran between two homes and went under the yellow tape, cutting her legs in the process.
First responders begged her to leave the scene due to the dangerous conditions. She agreed but not until they prayed with her first.
After that, Watson said officers held her hand and walked her back to the barricade until 11:30 p.m.
“I see the lights [and] I just knew they were gonna go in there and get him out,” she said.
A short time later, KD's body was found buried under rubble hours after Givaudan told Louisville officials everyone had been accounted for.
"He’s an Army man. He believes in 'No man left behind.' Why would you leave him?” she said. “It was too late. I told you at 4:30 to go get him.”
Givaudan said its plant leaders used clock-in information after the blast to establish a headcount. However, since the evacuation site was not accessible, they used two different locations. They believe the miscommunication happened when they cross-referenced its staff list with those taken to area hospitals.
“This initially led us to believe that all individuals were accounted for. When it became clear this was not the case, we immediately coordinated with EMS at the site who re-initiated search and rescue operations."
The family retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump and a team of individuals who want to find out why this blast happened and how this could have been prevented.
They attorneys said KD and the workers should have felt safe at work, and that their lives mattered.
"We can't allow this to be swept under the rug," Crump said.
KD's family said this is a loss they will never recover from. He loved working while taking care of his family and community.
"I never thought his commitment to work would lead to his final days," his son Kevin Dawson III said.
If you have any information regarding the explosion, you are asked to call the attorneys at (502) 907-2211.
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