OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14289557
FIRESTONE FIBERS & TEXTILES CO.
HOPEWELL, VA·
Event description
One employee dies, two burned in ethylene glycol vapor fire.
Investigation abstract
At approximately 8:30 a.m. on June 10, 1988, Employee #1 was lying on the floor removing a steel plate that had a steam jet fitted inside it. The steel plate wa s under a vacuum chamber. containing ethylene glycol vapors that had been heated past their 241 degree F flash point by 337 degree F steam. When the last nut wa s removed, the steel plate and steam jet came down, releasing ethylene glycol va pors.The vapors, which has a vapor density of 2.1 relative to air, ignited engul fing the vacuum chamber in fire. Employees #2 and #3 carried Employee #1 to a sa fety shower to extinguish the flames on his clothing. Employees #1 and #2 were h ospitalized for burns. Employee #1 died eight days later.
Victims (3)
-
#1 Fatality Age 50 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 518
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1913
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 44 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 633
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1913
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Non-hospitalized injury Age 57 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 518
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1913
- 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.