OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14252159

HEAD,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,DRUM,TORCH,EXPLOSION,COMBUSTIBLE LIQUID,STRUCK BY,CUTTING AND BURNING

1988-10-25T00:00:00

Event: HEAD,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,DRUM,TORCH,EXPLOSION,COMBUSTIBLE LIQUID,STRUCK BY,CUTTING AND BURNING
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 14252159
Report ID: 453710

Event description

Employee injured when struck by exploding drum

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, working alone, had cut the tops off five 55-gallon steel drums that had contained a flammable liquid, using a standard cutting torch. As he started to cut the top off the sixth drum, it exploded. The top of the drum separated, struck Employee #1 in the head, and landed 200 ft away. Employee #1 was wearing welding glasses, gloves, and a respirator. He was semiconscious when he was tran sported to the hospital.

Victim

#1 Hospitalized Age 29 M

Nature of injury
16

Part of body
13

Event type
1

Source
19

Occupation code
999

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
5

Hazardous substance
8880

Task assigned
2

Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.