A YouTuber from Nebraska is being sued after an electrician died while working in his nuclear silo “doomsday bunker.”
The electrician’s widow has filed a lawsuit against YouTube star Andrew Flair and three of his companies.
Flair’s channel, which he runs with an emphasis on survival, has 2.74 million members.
On December 20th, Arkfeld was working on the York Atlas-F nuclear missile silo when he was killed. The coroner determined that his death was accidental.
The Omaha World-Herald reports, “York County Sheriff Paul Vrbka said his office received a call around 8:26 p.m. that day saying a man was trapped between a steel door and a wall. When the police arrived, Joseph Arfkeld had died from internal injuries, Vrbka said. Foul play was not considered, and the death was ruled an accident.”
Flair’s lawyer has refuted the assertion that Arkfeld was directed to “lock the entry door” as he was leaving. With the help of a steel rope and an electric winch driven by a battery, the door could be opened and closed with a force of more than 2,000 pounds.
The door closed on Arkfeld’s head as he was entering, killing him instantly.
“Joe spent several tortuous moments trapped and unable to free himself from the force of the door, likely terrified, knowing he was about to die,” the complaint says, according to the World-Herald report.
The door jammed, and a tow truck had to be sent in to retrieve Arkfeld’s body.
Arkfeld’s wife claims Flair was aware the door was broken and provided “inadequate instruction” on how to utilize it for her late husband.
The complaint also cites Flair’s YouTube videos, in which he allegedly “mocked safety protocols and safe working conditions.”
In 2022, Flair bought the silo and started transforming it into a “doomsday bunker,” work he claims to have finished in February.
Now that it’s been renovated, the YouTuber is seeking to sell the silo for $750,000.
The World-Herald reports, “Death at this silo does not seem to be so uncommon. ‘Two of the construction workers died while they were building this,’ Flair said in a YouTube video posted nine days before Arkfeld died. The silo was constructed in 1962.”
Cases like this are why we cannot have nice things!