OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14301675
NAVAJO REFINING COMPANY, LLC
ARTESIA, NM·
Event description
One employee killed, one injured in boiler explosion
Investigation abstract
At 8:25 a.m. on October 20, 1987, Employee #1, the superintendent of the utiliti e #1 tried to light the pilot light. es department at the Navajo Refinery in Artesia, NM, was lighting the pilot ligh t on a Holman boiler. Employee #2 was with him. The boiler exploded, forcing bot h ends outward. A piece of flying debris struck Employee #1 on the right side of his face. He was taken to Artesia General Hospital, where he was pronounced dea d on arrival. Employee #2 was sent to the same hospital, was treated for shock, and was released after a short period of observation. The exact cause of the acc ident has not been determined. It is suspected that a faulty electrical relay ha d caused a release of natural gas into the interior of the boiler before Employe
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 59 M
- Nature of injury
- 1
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 6
- Occupation code
- 766
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 5
- Hazardous substance
- 1640
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 25 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 29
- Event type
- 13
- Source
- 6
- Occupation code
- 766
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Hazardous substance
- 1640
- 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.