OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14440986
POTLATCH CORPORATION, ID PULP & PAPERBOARD DIV.
LEWISTON, ID·
Event description
Employee dies years after exposure to cedar dust
Investigation abstract
Employee #1, a sawmill sawfiler, was diagnosed as having cedar poisoning (asthma , etc.) and high blood pressure, possibly aggravated by his asthmatic condition. He continued to receive treatment for the above conditions until his health dec lined. Employee #1 died of liver necrosis in April, 1988, approximately three ye ars after his first health problem was diagnosed. While the liver damage is not directly related to cedar dust exposures, the employee's family and physicians s uggested that the medication he was receiving for his job-related conditions may have contributed to the liver necrosis.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 54 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 27
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Task assigned
- 2
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.