OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14454110
CROP PRODUCTION SERVICES
LUVERNE, IA·
Event description
Employee dies in explosion fire caused by acetylene torch
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was cutting one of two 1/2 in. rods that were bolted to a flatbed tr . uck, and securing a 30 gallon drum. The drum was marked as pesticide, but had be en used to carry diesel fuel to refuel a John Deere highboy sprayer. The rod was approximately 1 in. from the side of the drum. The cut was not quite halfway th rough the rod, indicated by burn marks on the outside and inside of drum, when t he acetylene cutting torch caused sufficient heat to expand the fumes. Pressure inside the drum caused the bottom seam to rupture. Residual fuel sprayed Employe e #1 and the torch. Diesel fuel and fire engulfed Employee #1. Fellow employees who were nearby immediately tried to extinguish the fire. Employee #1 was killed
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 4
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 889
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 10
- 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.