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 #14301451

EQUIPMENT FAILURE,SULFURIC ACID,MAINTENANCE,CAUSTIC,COOLING TOWER,CONSTRUCTION,FALL,STRUCK BY,FALLING OBJECT

Event
EQUIPMENT FAILURE,SULFURIC ACID,MAINTENANCE,CAUSTIC,COOLING TOWER,CONSTRUCTION,FALL,STRUCK BY,FALLING OBJECT
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14301451
Report ID
653510

Event description

Employee killed when knocked into acid by broken part

Investigation abstract

Employee #11 was standing on a discharge pipe during a routine replacement of an electric motor on the C-circulating pump for an acid plant cooling tower. A cra ne's cantilevered fly section broke away from the main boom, then struck and bro ke a 4 inch and a 6 inch acid line. The acid lines were not in service at the ti me of the accident. The cantilevered fly section then came to rest on top of the 24 inch discharge pipe that Employee #11 was standing on. He was knocked onto a deck and into the sulfuric acid that was pouring from the out-of-service acid l ines. Employees #1 through #10 were injured trying to rescue Employee #11, who w as killed.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 45 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    2
    Event type
    14
    Source
    9
    Occupation code
    889
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    9
    Hazardous substance
    2310
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

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.