OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14413546
FRACTURE,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,OIL TANK,CONSTRUCTION,STORAGE TANK,WELDING,EXPLOSION,NECK,ARC WELDING
Event description
One employee killed, one injured in oil tank explosion
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 had been welding pipe joints on the ground while his helper was grin landed on the ground, possibly breaking his neck, and died on impact. Employee # 2 landed on his right side, breaking his right arm and leg, ankle, and left wris t. A 4 in. vent line filtered from oil and water tanks. ding the pipes. He was told by the construction supervisor to weld an extension onto a vent tube holder on a 500 barrel empty storage tank. His supervisor had b een told of the project. Employee #1 climbed to the top of the tank with the ext ension and started to weld the section in place with an arc welder. Employee #2, the gang pusher, had been working on top of the 500 barrel water tank installin g 2 1/2 in. lines over to the empty storage tank, and had just gotten on top of the empty tank to take a measurement. An explosion occurred and the empty tank f lew up and landed on its side. Employees #1 and #2 were thrown off. Employee #1
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 29 M
- Nature of injury
- 6
- Part of body
- 20
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 35
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 37 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 35
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- 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.