Parents sue Iraq contractor in soldier's electrocution

[Bravo Zulu]

Parents sue Iraq contractor in soldier's electrocution
Thursday, March 20, 2008
By Dan Majors and Gabrielle Banks, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When insurgents targeted voters near an Iraqi polling place in December 2005, Staff Sgt. Ryan Douglas Maseth, 24, aimed his weapon and ran headlong into the attackers, risking his life to protect Iraqi voters.
On Jan. 2 of this year, Sgt. Maseth, of Shaler, stepped into the shower at his quarters in Baghdad's safe Green Zone and was electrocuted.

"Ryan was highly trained," his mother, Cheryl A. Harris, said yesterday. "He was a Ranger. He was a Green Beret. He was a weapons master. He was in the military for six years, so I can understand the risks.
"I can't get my mind around something as senseless as stepping into a shower and being electrocuted."
According to the Army Criminal Investigation Division, Sgt. Maseth died when the electricity in the shower facility short-circuited because an electric water pump on the rooftop was not properly grounded.

Ms. Harris' grief, and her frustration, have been compounded by her difficulty in getting answers to what happened. A lot of what she was told by military authorities was sketchy, and some of it was wrong. Few people could explain what happened and no one would take responsibility.

Yesterday, in a quest for someone to be held accountable, Sgt. Maseth's parents sued KBR Inc., the multibillion-dollar contractor hired to maintain and repair the electrical infrastructure at the Radwaniyah Palace complex in Baghdad, a former estate of Saddam Hussein, where Sgt. Maseth was killed.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08080/866606-85.stm