OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14273148
KEYES FIBRE COMPANY
WATERVILLE, ME·
Event description
Employee killed by tumor linked to plant asbestos
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was a janitor at a paper mill from June 1959 to August 1974 (15 year s), where he routinely swept around boilers that were, and still are, insulated by asbestos-containing material. Employee #1 was diagnosed as having mesotheliom a, a disease characteristic of exposure to airborne asbestos. He died. In 1988, the mill spent nearly $800,000 in asbestos abatement and emergency spill cleanup jobs. The employer has adopted a very aggressive asbestos management program.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 74 M
- Nature of injury
- 22
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 14
- Occupation code
- 453
- Human factor
- 15
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 9020
- 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.