Suspended from a crane at the top of the Realty Tower on Monday, demolition workers dismantle steel with a cutting torch following the May 28 explosion that badly damaged the basement and first floors of the downtown structure.

YOUNGSTOWN — Lawsuits were filed Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on behalf of people who were injured in the May 28 explosion at the Realty Tower downtown and those forced out of their apartments on the upper floors by the explosion. The building is now being demolished.

The plaintiffs sued several natural gas companies; GreenHeart Companies, the company hired to remove utility lines from underneath the sidewalk of the Realty Tower; as well as the building’s owners and managers.

The six injury plaintiffs are Caroline Pizarro; her daughter, Ariadna Pizzaro; Christina Will; Richard Will; Susie A. Page; and Vito Colella.

Caroline Pizarro was at work in her office in the Chase Bank branch on the first floor at the time of the explosion, according to Vindicator files. Caroline Pizarro’s boyfriend, Matthew Cowher, said at a fundraiser for Caroline at the school Caroline’s daughter attends in Liberty shortly after the explosion that Caroline suffered injuries to her eyes, face and legs.

Pizarro is the woman Youngstown fire Capt. Tommy Gibbs was seen rescuing from the basement of the Realty Tower shortly after the explosion. Gibbs put Pizarro on his shoulders and carried her up a tall ladder to the ground level, where others took her from Gibbs and moved her away from the building on a stretcher.

The rescue was captured on the body camera of Joe Hamilton, a Mahoning County Sheriff’s deputy, who responded to the explosion from the Mahoning County Courthouse just down the street, where he was working security. Hamilton was among the first people to arrive at the explosion, along with firefighters.

Officials have said only bank employees were on the first floor at the time of the explosion, not customers. Chase employee Akil Drake, 27, was killed in the explosion. His family filed its own wrongful death lawsuit in June, also in common pleas court. It names similar parties as plaintiffs as the new lawsuits.

Defendants YO Properties 47 LLC, LY Property Management LLC and GreenHeart Companies, responded to a request for comment by saying they would have no comment.

Emails also were sent to Enbridge Gas (formerly Dominion East Ohio) officials, and The Vindicator is still waiting to hear back.

The Drake lawsuit alleges that the explosion resulted in Drake “being injured and trapped and unable to escape the Realty Tower. Mr. Drake endured pain, suffering and terror for an extended period of time prior to succumbing to the injuries caused by the explosion and passing away alone and afraid,” that suit states.

The lawsuits Monday were filed by attorneys Brian Kopp, Frank Cassese and James Melfi on behalf of people who “suffered personal injuries, property and other economic damages” as a result of the explosion, according to a press release from the law firm.

A June 14 preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation into explosion, stated a four-person scrap-removal crew, engaged by GreenHeart Companies of Boardman — owned by Brian Angelili, YO Properties 47 LLC’s managing member — was working in a basement area underneath the building’s sidewalk removing old utility lines when a crew member sawed three times into a pipe mistakenly believing it to not have natural gas in it. That caused the explosion.

The Pizarro lawsuit, which is similar to the other lawsuits, alleges that the Enbridge defendants “owed plaintiffs a duty to exercise reasonable and ordinary care in the preparation, management, distribution and sale of the natural gas supplied to Realty Tower.”

Enbridge also “owed plaintiffs a duty to exercise reasonable and ordinary care to warn, inspect, advise, instruct and communicate with the contractors working in the Realty Tower basement, including but not limited to providing accurate information pertaining to the pressurization of gas lines.”

The Pizarro lawsuit alleges that GreenHeart Companies “owed plaintiffs a duty to exercise reasonable and ordinary care in the hiring and proper training of its agents, contractors or employees in regards to the relocation of the utility lines in the basement” of Realty Tower.

“GreenHeart failed to adhere to the aforementioned duties, failed to meet the standard of care and was negligent,” the suit states. “GreenHeart’s negligence was a direct and proximate cause of the catastrophic explosion,” the lawsuit alleges. The Pizarro lawsuit seeks damages for the personal injuries she suffered.

The Pizarro lawsuit alleges LY Property Management “supervised, maintained and/or controlled the Realty Tower” and “owed plaintiffs a duty to exercise ordinary care and to maintain the Realty Tower in a reasonably safe condition.”

It alleges that LY Property Management “was negligent in that it breached the aforementioned duties … in that LY Property Management failed to properly vet the contractors hired to perform work in the Realty Tower basement … warn contractors of known defects and to inspect the premises for hazards.”

The suit states that YO Properties 47 LLC, which the suit alleges “owned, supervised, maintained and/or controlled Realty Tower,” owed a duty to “exercise care and to maintain the Realty Tower in a reasonably safe condition.”

It alleges YO Properties also “was negligent in that it breached the aforementioned duties owed to plaintiffs in that YO Properties failed to property vet the contractors hired to perform work” in the Realty Tower basement.

The Pizarro lawsuit seeks damages for Ariadna Jiminez-Pizarro, Pizarro’s daughter, because of “loss of support from reasonably expected earning capacity of Caroline Pizarro” and other losses.

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