105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14262604

BURN,ALCOHOL,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,HATCH,CLEANING,FIRE,SMOKING,TANK

Event
BURN,ALCOHOL,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,HATCH,CLEANING,FIRE,SMOKING,TANK
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14262604
Report ID
452110

Event description

Employee injured in tank car explosion

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 had climbed onto an empty tank trailer to wash it out through the to rts--one outside and one inside the tanker. There were no witnesses and the empl oyee does not recall the accident. p hatch. The tank trailer was a stainless steel, chemically resistant, sparkproo f, dual coated 25 lb pressure vessel #307312, rated to haul flammables. The top hatch was approximately 10 feet above a concrete pad. The vehicle had contained alcohol and the vapors ignited. The flash vented through the hatch, knocking Emp loyee #1 off the vehicle to the ground. He sustained burns to the upper body, ha nds, and forearms, and a fractured leg. It appears that as Employee #1 leaned ov er the tank, his disposable cigarette lighter fell from his pocket through the h atch into the tank, igniting the flammable vapors. A lighter was found in two pa

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 21 M

    Nature of injury
    4
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    1
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    699
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    10
    Hazardous substance
    1536
    Task assigned
    1

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.