HOUSTON, Texas, 8 May 2004 — A memorial service for the five ABB Lummus Global employees who were killed by terrorists in Yanbu last Saturday, was held on Thursday at the Grace Presbyterian Church here.
More than 500 family members, relatives, friends and colleagues attended the service amid tight security, with no media allowed inside the church.
Anthony Mason, 57; Michael Hardy, 44; Stephen LaGuardia, 62, Philip Coplen, 53, and Michael McGillen, 52, were all remembered at the service. The son of Coplen also attended the service led by Rev. Dr. David G. McKechnie.
Samir Brikho, the CEO of ABB Lummus Global, and Chris Lloyd-James, vice president and general manager of ABB Lummus, both spoke at the service, praising the work and dedication of the five employees who were killed.
ABB Lummus evacuated the 90 remaining expatriate staff and their 30 family members from Yanbu on Tuesday.
The company said that it would continue working on the oil refinery project in Yanbu, replacing the staff that left with other expatriate workers.
According to reports, Canadian Thomas Washburn, 40, head manager of ABB’s project in Yanbu, who was shot in the neck during the attack, is no longer completely paralyzed. “He has ability to move his upper torso, and he could move his upper arms,” Thomas’ brother Ken Washburn is quoted in the Houston Chronicle.
Arturo Carrasco, 41, of Houston, Texas, was also wounded in the attack, but ABB Lummus spokeswoman Patti McDonald said this week that he would be released from hospital soon.
It is not known if Thomas Washburn will ever regain complete mobility, though doctors are saying his paralysis is possibly temporary. He has yet to regain speech, and his family has said that it would like him to be transferred to a hospital in London when he is released from the one in Yanbu.
