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Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14449938

BURN,FRACTURE,DUST,GRAIN,EXPLOSION,GRAIN ELEVATOR

Event
BURN,FRACTURE,DUST,GRAIN,EXPLOSION,GRAIN ELEVATOR
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14449938
Report ID
552700

Event description

GRAIN EXPLOSION RESULTS IN TWO DEAD THREE HOSPITALIZED

Investigation abstract

On September 22, 1989, a grain dust explosion occurred at a grain elevator facil ity. Two potential sources of ignition were identified. The first being a cover for a tail pulley on a leg was found wedged in between the tail pulley and the l eg belting. Since both the cover and the tail pulley are metal, a spark may have ignited dust. The second possible ignition source was a head pulley shaft was f ound with bluing marks, indicating overheating, and the head pulley shroud also showed signs of heating, and may have been in contact with the head pulley shaft , producing intense heat. This explosion resulted in two employees being killed and three hospitalized with burns.

Victims (5)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 51 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    31
    Event type
    1
    Source
    14
    Occupation code
    863
    Human factor
    8
    Environmental factor
    5
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Fatality Age 39 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    31
    Event type
    1
    Source
    14
    Occupation code
    863
    Human factor
    8
    Environmental factor
    5
    Task assigned
    1
  3. #3 Hospitalized Age 23 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    9
    Event type
    1
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    863
    Human factor
    8
    Environmental factor
    7
    Task assigned
    1
  4. #4 Hospitalized Age 45 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    9
    Event type
    1
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    473
    Human factor
    8
    Environmental factor
    7
    Task assigned
    2
  5. #5 Hospitalized Age 24 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    9
    Event type
    1
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    473
    Human factor
    8
    Environmental factor
    7
    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.