Corey Lawyer has spent almost 25 years at H&P. He started out as a roughneck, worked offshore and on land, built rigs, and now leads operations across two major U.S. regions. But the story that sticks with him most isn’t about a rig or a well - it’s about a decision made on an ordinary Friday night.
“I used to have a really fast Mustang,” he says. “For the car guys out there - it had been to Hennessey and had about 850 horsepower.” That night, he was just going to pick up one of his kids from a friend’s house. “I came around a corner and got a little bit too aggressive with the gas and lost control of my car.”
The tree impacted the driver’s side door, right where Corey was sitting. “It folded the door up and shoved me over against the center console and pinned me in the car.”
He was the only one in the vehicle. Emergency responders arrived quickly, cutting both doors and the roof off the car to extract him. “They started lifting the roof off and my seatbelt was still on. It started to choke me, so I had to yell at them to cut it off.”
A Life-Altering Moment
Corey’s injuries were serious: a shattered thumb, torn ligaments, and a massive open wound to his left leg. “My lower leg was almost ripped off. The orthopedic surgeon said he could see through my knee.” He underwent four surgeries and spent months in recovery, unable to use his right hand or left leg.
But the consequences reached far beyond him.
“My daughter graduated from high school the next day. I wasn’t able to go to her graduation ceremony.” He missed a long-planned family vacation and a 25th anniversary cruise with his wife. “We weren’t able to cancel it, so she went by herself,” he says. “She absolutely deserved it. She got one of those calls none of us want our significant other to get - someone saying, ‘your husband’s been in a serious car accident.’”
Even at work, others had to step in. “The people I worked with at H&P had to pick up the slack. Fortunately, I work with a great team, and they took care of business. But my decisions definitely impacted several other people in a negative way.”
Reckoning with Risk
Corey has always been involved in safety leadership at H&P. But this experience brought things into sharper focus.
“I think working here has definitely made me reconsider and grow in how I think about safety. But unfortunately, I think driving, and especially driving fast cars, was something that I had kind of held back on that safety journey. I was taking risks that weren’t aligned with who I wanted to be or who I hoped I was influencing others to be.”
That disconnect has narrowed now. “I reconsider the consequences of taking risks. I didn’t consider the magnitude of those things before.”
And he knows the road remains one of the most dangerous places for oilfield workers. “We know that driving is the most dangerous thing they do,” he says. “We know that people can get injured on drilling rigs... but driving is still much more dangerous than that.”
Changing the Conversation
The most dangerous risks are often the ones we normalize - speeding, distraction, driving fatigued. Corey’s message to the field is simple: slow down.
“If you’ve been working all night or all day and have a long trip ahead of you, take the time to get some rest. It’s not worth the risk to get home a couple of hours early.”
And it’s not just about driving. It’s about how we think of risk in general.
“We’re all on a journey,” he says. “We're learning. We’re gaining new experiences that add context to how we make decisions. So however we can come alongside each other, coach, train, provide tools - the more we do that together as a team, the better our company is gonna be. And the more people are going to go home safely to their families.”
As for what he drives now?
“I think I’m going to stick with the truck for now. I don’t have any plans to get another fast car - and I don’t think my wife would let me do that anyway.”