ST. LOUIS COUNTY • The wife of a Museum of Transportation volunteer killed Feb. 23 while restoring a 1937 produce truck is blaming his death on the museum association and her husband’s supervisor.

Eric Heselbarth, 73, a volunteer at the west St. Louis County museum for a decade, died after being struck in the head by a piece of a truck tire that exploded as it was being inflated. He was inside a building, not open to the public, where volunteers and staff restore vehicles and other transportation equipment.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, Kathleen Heselbarth claims negligence by the museum and her husband’s supervisor, Daniel Jacobsmeyer, contributed to Eric Heselbarth’s death.

She claims Jacobsmeyer, also a museum volunteer, chose the wrong type of rings and used a sledgehammer instead of a rubber mallet during assembly of the tires.