OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14349195
BURN,CHEST,EJECTED,HYDROGEN,CONFINED SPACE,EXPLOSION,ARM,FACE
Event description
One employee killed and one burned in buoy explosion
Investigation abstract
At approximately 1:07 p.m. on October 20, 1988, Employees #1 and #2 were using s crew drivers and wrenches to remove cables and electronic gear from buoy 6N03. E mployee #1 was standing on the deck of the buoy at the rear. Employee #2 was rem oving cables from compartment #2, which is 4 ft by 7 ft deep at the front of the buoy. A hydrogen explosion threw Employee #1 from the deck of the buoy into the air and onto the shop floor. Employee #1 was dead at the scene. Employee #2 suf fered burns to his face, left arm, and chest as he escaped from compartment #2. No testing of the atmosphere had been conducted prior to the employees starting work in the buoy compartments.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1410
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 32 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1410
- 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.