DaytonDailyNews.com

Everyone who knew Tom Rogers thought of him as family.

Lori Golden, his next door neighbor, will remember Rogers as a brother, she said.

Rogers died Saturday, June 21, after inhaling toxic fumes at United Waste Water Services, where he worked in Middletown.

All of his neighbors on Overdale Drive in Colerain Twp., are mourning his loss and praying for the family he left behind — his wife, Angie, and children Austin, 11, and Heather, 18, Golden said. She described Rogers as always eager to lend a helping hand or extend an invitation.

"If you stopped over, it was come out and grill with us," she said. "Everybody kind of gravitated to their house because they always had an open door."

Known to his friends as "Tommy," Rogers worked at the plant in Middletown for about seven years, said Deborah Sites, his sister-in-law.

The Lefferson Road plant, which recycles waste water and other industrial liquids, was closed until today, June 23, when the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will conduct an investigation, according to a Middletown Division of Fire report.

Firefighters rescued Rogers from a catwalk 30 feet above the ground about 10:45 a.m., but he later succumbed to his injuries at Atrium Medical Center.

Preliminary autopsy results showed Rogers had an enlarged heart, but it is not known whether this contributed to his death, said Doyle Burke, the chief investigator for the Warren County Coroner's Office. The final autopsy results including toxicology tests to see if Rogers inhaled gas from a sodium hydrosulfide leak could take more than three weeks, Burke said.

Angie Rogers said she will miss everything about the man she married 14 years ago.

"He was the most wonderful person in the world," she said. "That's who he was."