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U-Haul pleads guilty to hazardous materials training violations in fatal food truck explosion

February 1, 2019

U-Haul Co. of Pennsylvania and one of its former general managers pleaded guilty Thursday to violating hazardous materials training requirements in a case that resulted in the death of a food truck owner and her daughter in 2014, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The company and the former general manager of its Feltonville operation, Miguel Rivera, pleaded guilty to two counts of violating training regulations. The company and Rivera did not admit to filling the propane tank of the food truck, La Parrillada Chapina, which exploded on July 1, 2014, resulting in the deaths of Olga Galdamez, 42, and her daughter, Jaylin Galdamez, 17, and the injury of 11 other individuals.

Surveillance pictures showed that Galdamez's fiancé took propane cylinders from the food truck to the U-Haul location in June 2014.

Government documents alleged that Rivera or other employees filled out-of-date cylinders with propane in violation of hazardous materials training requirements.