OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14427124
GATES RUBBER CO., INC.
DENVER, CO·
Event description
Three burned, one later dies, when vulcanizer opens
Investigation abstract
Employees #1, a vessel operator, Employee #2, an electrician, and Employee #3, a #3, who were standing in front of the vessel, were burned by the hot water and steam that was released. Employee #1 died 1 1/2 months after the accident from h is burns and ensuing medical complications. Employees #2 and #3 sustained less s evere burns; neither was hospitalized. The workers were not aware of the exact t iming of the circuitry, and the vulcanizer did not have a safety device to preve nt it from opening. pipefitter, began the day shift by checking the operation of the vulcanizer, a pressure vessel that hardens rubber with steam. The operator on the previous shi ft had reported that the machine was malfunctioning: it was not achieving the 37 0 degree F temperature required for the process, and it was filling with water d uring the initial steam cycle and not curing the rubber. When Employee #1 starte d the steam cycle, the vessel malfunctioned as described, and the crew decided t o abort the cycle. Employee #1 pressed the EMERGENCY STOP button, initiating a c ircuit that caused the vulcanizer to open 43 seconds later. Employees #1 through
Victims (3)
-
#1 Fatality Age 55 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 41
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 11
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 60 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 41
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 11
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Non-hospitalized injury Age 53 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 2
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 41
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 11
- 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.