HOUSTON – Hitting the ground with enough force to lift a worker off the ground, one of the nation’s largest mobile cranes collapsed at a Houston oil refinery, killing four workers and injuring seven others.

The four killed include Marion "Scooter" Hubert Odom III, John D. Henry, Daniel "DJ" Lee Johnson and Rocky Dale Strength.  Both Johnson and Strength were only 30-years-old. Deep South Crane and Rigging issued a statement today saying they are deeply saddened that the accident occurred and say they are committed to doing the right thing to make sure this type of tragedy does not happen again.

All but two of the injured workers were released from the hospital Friday night. A refinery spokesman said that the two workers who remained in the hospital did not suffer life-threatening injuries.

The 30-story-tall crane, capable of lifting 1 million pounds, fell over about 2 p.m., said Jim Roecker, the company’s vice president for refining.

Fire departments from Houston and Pasadena immediately responded to the scene.

Two of the most seriously injured workers were rushed by Life Flight to Memorial Hermann Hospital. Two workers were taken to area hospitals by ambulance. Three more workers were treated on the scene.

“I’m very sorry to report that we do have four fatalities of contract employees here,” said Roecker. "This is a traumatic experience for all of us.

“It is a very sad day for us here at the refinery. Certainly our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of all these employees that have suffered a loss in this tragic incident.

Roecker said all workers had been accounted for. About 1,500 contract workers are employed at the refinery, he said.

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The crane is the largest of its kind in the nation and could lift up to 800,000 pounds.

Contract worker Michael Gabriel was counting himself as one of the lucky ones following the incident.

"My co-workers were yelling at me, 'Mike, Mike run. Get out of there. Run, run, run," Gabriel told 11 News. "Once I was running, the crane was coming down. The crane landed exactly where I was (standing)."

Still, he didn't escape injury. The 20-year-old Spring resident said a pipe hit him so hard that he couldn't feel parts of his body. He was one of the seven people taken to the hospital Friday.

He was released Friday night.

Mattie Graham stood with her husband, Deep South worker Horace Graham, at the plant near the scene of the accident.

“I’m thinking about their families. He could have been there today,” she said, gesturing to her husband.

“I feel sad for my friends and their families, because this hurts everybody,” a man at the scene said. He didn't want to be identified, but said he was a crane operator elsewhere and he came to the site when he heard about the collapse.

The crane had not been scheduled to do any work until next week, but Roecker said its engine was idling after it hit the ground.

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An unidentified worker is comforted at the scene of the LyondellBasell crane collapse.

“We were actually preparing to do some major maintenance activities there. That’s why the crane was placed where it was,” Roecker said. “At this point, we’re very unsure as to the cause of the failure of the crane.”

The crane ended up sprawled across a work area. It hit a smaller crane and took out part of the edge of a large tent, exposing picnic tables. Gabriel was one of those in the tent eating lunch when the crane started to come down.

It's impact was so fierce that the collapse created a deep crater where a pully fixture used on the crane landed.

The crane had been delivered in pieces and assembled on site within the last month. It was brought in to remove the roof of the coker unit so large drums could be removed from inside, Roecker said. Cokers convert crude oil to petroleum products.

The crane is owned by the Deep South and Rigging Company out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Deep South spokeswoman Margaret Landry issued a statement from the company’s headquarters in Baton Rouge, La., saying it was investigating “to determine the root cause, correct it and ensure that this type of tragedy does not occur again.”

The company said up a hotline for families to check on the status of loved ones. The number is 1-225-753-4371.

OSHA investigators are headed to the scene to investigate the cause of the collapse.

OSHA's crane standards have not been updated since 1971. Cranes are supposed to be inspected once a year, but OSHA only checked out 23,000 of the country's 4 million construction sites in 2007.

East Texas Crane Academy president Joe Bob Williams, whose company has certified crane operators for Lyondell, said it’s unusual for such cranes to fail because of the number of people involved in their maintenance.

“It’s really odd for these cranes to have any issues because there are so many eyes looking in,” Williams said.

Texas led the nation with 26 crane-related fatalities in 2005 and 2006, according to federal statitics. Cranes in Texas operate without any state or local oversight, leaving that job to federal regulators.

Texas is one of 35 states that do not require crane operators to be licensed. Earlier this year in Dallas, city officials found that eight of 23 cranes being used across the city had uncertified operators at the controls.

A crane collapsed at the Dallas Cowboys new stadium in June, injuring three workers.

OSHA standards require cranes to undergo annual inspections, but it is a self-policing mandate for crane owners. Federal law requires that inspection records be kept, but not submitted.

Crane safety has been getting extra scrutiny in recent months because of an alarming number of crane-related deaths in places such as New York, Miami and Las Vegas.

In New York City, two crane accidents since March have killed nine people—a greater number than the total deaths from cranes over the past decade.

An Associated Press analysis in June found that cities and states have wildly varying rules governing construction cranes, and some have no regulations at all, choosing instead to rely on federal guidelines dating back nearly 40 years that some experts say haven’t kept up with technological advances.

Lyondell Chemical, a U.S. company, and the Dutch firm Basell were rivals until they announced a $12.1 billion deal last July to create one of the world’s largest chemical companies.

On the chemical side, Lyondell produces ethylene, a crucial precursor to a range of other chemicals, as well as propylene oxide, which is also used in producing a variety of chemical products.

Basell focuses on polyolefins, common types of plastic.

The Houston refinery is one of the world’s largest for processing high-sulfer crude oil. The facility itself covers about 700 acres along the Houston Ship Channel at the city limits of Houston and Pasadena.