104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14455877

GRINDER,HEAD,ACETYLENE TORCH,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,GAS,EXPLOSION,VALVE,SPARK

Event
GRINDER,HEAD,ACETYLENE TORCH,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,GAS,EXPLOSION,VALVE,SPARK
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14455877
Report ID
854910

Event description

Employee injured by explosion in truck equipment box

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, age 20, was using a right angle grinder to cut a piece of exhaust p ipe held in a vise. Sparks from the grinder reached the equipment box on a maint enance truck in the adjacent stall, setting off an explosion in the box that ble w off its door. It struck Employee #1 in the head and knocked him to the ground. The box contained an oxyacetylene torch that was connected to tanks on the truc k. The torch had been used before the truck was brought into the shop. The valve s on the torch had been left slightly open, which let the residual gas in the li ne bleed off into the box. The box also contained a large roll of duct tape and a rag that could have functioned as collection reservoirs for the gas.

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 20 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    864
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    5
    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.