OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14386718
BURN,STATIC ELECTRICITY,MEK,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,XYLENE,CLEANING,FIRE,HIGH PRESSURE,CLEANING FLUID
Event description
Employee killed in cleaning solvent fire
Investigation abstract
At approximately 3:25 p.m. on April 8, 1987, Employee #1 was washing out a 2,200 -gallon paint mixing tank. He was using a high power spray apparatus filled with a cleaning solvent that contained xylene and methyl ethyl ketone. The vapors cr eated by the power spray ignited, and Employee #1 sustained burns over 48 percen t of his body. He died at 6:09 a.m. on April 9, 1987. The ignition source is sus pected to have been static electricity build-up from the spray apparatus. The ta nk had not been bonded.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 53 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 10
- Hazardous substance
- 2590
- 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.