Gulf rig worker testifies

WASHINGTON – Stephen Stone, a survivor of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, on Thursday recounted his experience on the deadly night, the first by a drilling-rig worker before a congressional committee.

Stone told the House Judiciary Committee that the April 20 blast was “hardly the first thing to go wrong.”

“This event was set in motion years ago by these companies needlessly rushing to make money faster, while cutting corners to save money,” he testified.

In the weeks leading up to the explosion, he said, workers about four times had to “stop pumping drilling mud and pump down a heavy-duty sealant compound instead, to seal the cracks in the formation that were causing us to lose mud.”