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 #14305841

BURN,FLAMMABLE LIQUID,WORK RULES,FIRE,CONSTRUCTION,LOCKOUT,VALVE,COMBUSTIBLE LIQUID,ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE,INATTENTION

Event
BURN,FLAMMABLE LIQUID,WORK RULES,FIRE,CONSTRUCTION,LOCKOUT,VALVE,COMBUSTIBLE LIQUID,ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE,INATTENTION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14305841
Report ID
454716

Event description

Employee killed when escaping vapors ignite

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was working approximately 90 ft above and 10 ft to one side of Emplo yees #2 and #3 when they broke a check valve in a pipeline. A shut-off valve fur ther up the line was open, allowing Dowtherm, a combustible liquid, to flow thro ugh the open check valve. The Dowtherm was heated above its flash point and esca ped as a vapor, which ignited. Employee #1 was burned and killed. Employees #2 a nd #3 were not seriously injured. The check valve had appeared to be a flange.

Victims (3)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    599
    Human factor
    13
    Environmental factor
    7
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 32 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    21
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    587
    Human factor
    13
    Environmental factor
    7
    Task assigned
    1
  3. #3 Non-hospitalized injury Age 27 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    17
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    599
    Human factor
    13
    Environmental factor
    7
    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.