Berkeley County Coroner Glenn Rhoad is re-evaluating the case of a Santee Cooper employee who died while working at the utility's Moncks Corner water plant five years ago.

The death of Thomas A. Moore, whose body was discovered Oct. 16, 2000, inside the plant's control room, originally was linked to a slight heart abnormality.

BRAD NETTLES/STAFF Tom and Alice Moore, whose son Thomas Moore died at Santee Cooper's water plant in 2000, said they think their son's death was caused by exposure to a toxic chemical at the plant.

But after Moore's family presented evidence suggesting that Moore, 33, may have been exposed to a toxic ammonia gas leak at the plant, Rhoad re-examined the case.

Rhoad is awaiting a report from pathologists at the Medical University of South Carolina and could make his decision as soon as today. Rhoad was not the coroner at the time of Moore's death.

"I'm not saying I'm going to change the cause of death," Rhoad said Wednesday. "But it's been five years and the family needs some closure."

A different conclusion could shift the momentum in the family's battle with Santee Cooper over workers' compensation benefits and answer lingering questions about the plant's safety procedures.

Santee Cooper officials declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit. But in documents from the case, utility officials expressed sympathy about the family's loss and say they have bent over backward to meet with family members and provide requested records. The utility also maintains in those records that there is no evidence of any leak or malfunction at the plant and that Moore died a natural death.

Moore's family -- his parents, Tom and Alice Moore; his sister, Rhonda Moore; and his widow, Catherine Moore -- never accepted the autopsy findings that he died of an irregular heartbeat caused by an enlarged heart. They say there was a rush to judgment by investigators and a state-owned utility slow to admit its mistakes.

A review of some case records by The Post and Courier reveals the following:

-- A 2003 letter written by MUSC pathologist Dr. Russell A. Harley challenged his colleagues' conclusion that Moore died of natural causes. He noted an unexplained lung injury detected in the autopsy, and concluded that "toxic gas exposure" was "the most plausible explanation." He also raised concerns about "peculiar skin injuries" on Moore's right hand and face. "These are consistent with damage from concentrated ammonia," he wrote. Harley did not return calls for comment.

-- Plant logbook entries show that Moore reported an ammonia leak within 24 hours prior to his death. It was the second report of an ammonia leak at the plant within two months. Other logbook entries indicate that workers replaced an ammonia tank hose three days before Moore's death and that the plant alarm system worked only intermittently.

-- An autopsy report does not indicate that investigators tested Moore's body for toxic chemicals. Investigators did test cookies, juice and two Tylenol tablets found near Moore's body to make sure nothing was wrong with them. They also screened Moore's blood for drugs, and found nothing but traces of caffeine in his system.

Moore's body was found soon after co-workers arrived for the morning shift. Utility officials, medical investigators and safety inspectors concluded that day that Moore died of natural causes.

His body went undiscovered for as long as 10 hours because he was working alone and an automated alarm system failed to alert anyone that Moore hadn't made his rounds.

As Moore lay dead, the utility's water supply sat virtually unmonitored. The plant pumps water from Lake Moultrie and at the time of Moore's death it supplied about 94,000 homes and businesses in Berkeley and Dorchester counties.

Moore's relatives say he was healthy and vibrant. He was a non-smoker and had never been treated for heart problems.

They knew he worked around dangerous chemicals; he had told them stories about accidents at the plant, including one just two months before his death in which he was doused with ferric chloride, a corrosive chemical, after a pump failed and sprayed the chemical around the room.

The family had doubts about Moore's death from the beginning. They spent much of the next several years gathering information from the utility, largely through the state's Freedom of Information Act that gives citizens access to government records.

The family grew more suspicious as it amassed utility documents indicating past chemical leaks and lax safety procedures.

Early on, they say, attorneys were reluctant to take Catherine Moore's workers' compensation case against the utility. "You mention Santee Cooper you'd think they're talking about the second coming of God," Tom Moore said.

Moore's widow eventually found a lawyer to file suit. In a 2003 letter to that attorney, one of the utility's lawyers wrote: The utility "realizes that the family necessarily has emotional issues." But it "has a legal obligation ... not to simply make a payment out of sympathy."