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 #14453351

WORK RULES,BOILER,EXPLOSION

Event
WORK RULES,BOILER,EXPLOSION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14453351
Report ID
751910

Event description

KILLED IN BOILER EXPLOSION AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Investigation abstract

AT ABOUT 6 AM ON MARCH 7, 1986, A CUSTODIAN AT THE GREENE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISC DBOARD. OVERED THAT THE BOILER WAS NOT WORKING. HE NOTIFIED THE PRINCIPAL AND A LOCAL EL ECTRICAL CONTRACTOR. THE ELECTRICIAN FOUND A DEFECTIVE CONTROL DEVICE. HE TOLD T HE PRINCIPAL THAT THE CONTROL MUST BE REPLACED BY A BOILER REPAIR COMPANY, BUT T HAT THE BOILER COULD BE OPERATED MANUALLY IN THE INTERIM. THE CUSTODIAN PROCEEDE D TO OPERATE THE BOILER MANUALLY, BUT DECIDED TO SHUT DOWN THE BOILER TEMPORARIL Y, AS HE HAD TO BE AWAY FROM THE SCHOOL FOR A SHORT TIME. WHEN HE RETURNED HE AT TEMPTED TO RESTART THE BOILER. IT EXPLODED, KILLING HIM. IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT HE HAD BYPASSED THE BUILT-IN SAFETY DEVICES BY BLOCKING THEM WITH A PIECE OF CAR

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 57 M

    Nature of injury
    6
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    6
    Occupation code
    453
    Human factor
    9
    Environmental factor
    5
    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.