104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14320428

FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WELDER,WELDING,EXPLOSION,TANK,HEXANE

Event
FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WELDER,WELDING,EXPLOSION,TANK,HEXANE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14320428
Report ID
317000

Event description

WELDING NEAR TANK CONTAINING HEXANE; EXPLOSION OCCURRED

Investigation abstract

AN EMPLOYEE WAS ATTEMTING TO REMOVE A STEEL COUPLING THAT HAD BEEN WELDED TO A # 275 STEEL TANK. THE TANK HAD CONTAINED A SMALL AMOUNT OF HEXANE. WHEN THE EMPLOY EE PLACED THE TORCH CLOSE TO THE OPEN COUPLING, AN EXPLOSION OCCURRED. EMPLOYEE #1 WAS THROWN APPROXIMATELY 20 FEET ACROSS THE ROOM. HE DIED OF HEAD INJURIES AN D LACERATIONS.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 63 M

    Nature of injury
    7
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    6
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    15
    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.