A welder who died in an explosion aboard a barge docked on Staten Island was killed instantly by the blast, according to the victim’s sister, who said her brother died without taking a breath.
Brian Young, 45, was the only person on board the Casablanca, a barge tied up at Richmond Terrace near South Ave. in Mariners Harbor, when the blast occurred at 2:37 p.m. on Sept. 10, officials said.
The victim’s family was contacted by the city Medical Examiner’s office the next morning.
“It was instant,” the victim’s sister Ann-Elizabeth Young, 38, told the Daily News. “They didn’t find any burns in his lungs. He hadn’t even inhaled when the actual explosion happened. It was the pressure that was released immediately before the explosion and the impact that killed him. He wouldn’t have known what happened.”
An ironworker from Pennsylvania, Young owned and operated Scranton West Mobile Welding. His crew had been working on the barge for months before he was killed, his sister said.
Brian Young, 45, died in an explosion aboard a barge docked in Staten Island on Sep. 10. (Facebook)
Three days before the explosion, Young was aboard the Casablanca when his sister called with news that their father had suffered a massive stroke, she said. He drove up to Massachusetts to visit his dad in the hospital later that day, only to return to the job site just hours before he was killed, according to his sister.
“He left on Wednesday, arrived back at work Thursday, and by 2:30 p.m. he was dead,” she said.
He leaves behind a wife, Jessica Young, with whom he shares a daughter and whose son from a previous relationship he helped raise. Young also has three children from a previous relationship, his sister said.
“He was a very loving husband, a devoted husband and a father. A hard worker,” Young’s wife told the Daily News. “I’m far from OK. He was supposed to be coming home.”
Jessica Young said she met her husband amid a strange encounter with another man, who began following her as she was Christmas shopping about 15 years ago. She called her brother asking for help, who enlisted Young, a friend of his, to help drive off the stalker.
“That’s how I met Brian,” his wife said. “He’s been my hero ever since.”
Rose Abuin / New York Daily News
Emergency workers are pictured after an explosion on a barge in Mariners Harbor, Staten Island on Sept. 10, 2026. (Rose Abuin / New York Daily News)
The blast aboard the Casablanca ignited a blaze on the barge, which spread to a shipping container on land that was packed with petroleum. More than 160 FDNY personnel rushed to the scene to extinguish the fire.
Young’s body was found on the Casablanca, cops said. Two firefighters also suffered minor injuries.
A 2022 annual report filed by Clean Water of New York, an oil recycling business, with the NY Department of Environmental Conservation lists the Casablanca as a barge belonging to the company with an 89,293-barrel capacity.
The company offered its condolences to Young’s family in a statement sent to the Staten Island Advance.
“It is with great sadness that we confirm one worker lost his life,” the statement from Clean Water of New York read. “Our deepest condolences are with them during this extremely difficult time.”
Clean Water of New York declined to comment when reached by the Daily News.
The barge explosion follows another blast at a Mariner Harbor dry dock located just a few blocks away on May 22.
Firefighters responding to reports of two workers trapped in a confined space at that shipyard found a fire burning in the basement of a 150-foot-by-150-foot metal structure at the rear of the facility, according to the FDNY.
About 50 minutes after that blaze broke out, the building was suddenly rocked by a thunderous explosion. The blast caused “serious injuries to multiple FDNY members,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said at the time.
That blast left one man dead and 36 injured, including two firefighters with serious injuries.
With Rocco Parascandola