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 #14393516

RAILROAD TANK CAR,WORK RULES,BRAKEMAN,CAUGHT BETWEEN,STRUCK BY

Event
RAILROAD TANK CAR,WORK RULES,BRAKEMAN,CAUGHT BETWEEN,STRUCK BY
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14393516
Report ID
625700

Event description

Employee killed when caught between tank cars

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, a brakeman, and two coworkers were switching railroad tank cars at a chemical plant. He directed the engine, which was pushing an empty tank car, t o couple onto a string of loaded outbound tank cars at a loading rack. When the coupling failed to hold, Employee #1 stopped the engine with the couplings of th e two tank cars approximately 3 or 4 feet apart. He had stepped between the two cars to adjust the drawworks when another loaded tank car came rolling down the incline and struck the string of outbound cars. This pushed the string of cars i nto the tank car in front of the engine, catching Employee #1 between them. He w as killed instantly.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 28 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    1
    Event type
    2
    Source
    38
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    10
    Environmental factor
    4
    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.