OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14455794
LUNG,VENTILATION,WORK RULES,INHALATION,CHLORINE,CHEMICAL REACTION,CHEMICAL VAPOR,TOXIC FUMES,INATTENTION
Event description
Employee's lungs irritated by copper chloride fumes
Investigation abstract
Employee #1, a machine operator, arrived at the beginning of his shift and began using an inner-layer etching machine. He did not check the machine's chlorine f low valve since it normally did not need adjusting. During the previous shift, j anitorial workers had inadvertently bumped the valve to a higher-than-normal set ting. As Employee #1's shift progressed, the etching machine became overchlorina ted and began to release copper chloride fumes. Employee #1's lungs became irrit ated from inhaling the fumes and he was sent to the industrial clinic. He was tr ansferred to Holy Cross Hospital for evaluation, then returned to work.
Victim
-
#1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 676
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 9
- Hazardous substance
- 0640
- 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.