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 #14457360

BURN,ACETYLENE TORCH,FLAMMABLE LIQUID,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,PPE,WORK RULES,FIRE,WELDING,GASOLINE,TANK

Event
BURN,ACETYLENE TORCH,FLAMMABLE LIQUID,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,PPE,WORK RULES,FIRE,WELDING,GASOLINE,TANK
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14457360
Report ID
352420

Event description

Employee injured in gasoline tank explosion

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and a coworker were preparing a junked car for disposal. The vehicle ior to burning. Three vehicles in shop at the time of the accident had their gas tanks removed and employees interviewed verified that this was the normal proce dure. was on its side and to remove the engine, Employee #1 ignited an oxygen gas wel ding torch to burn the motor mounts from the motor. He then started burning off exhaust hangars from the dual exhaust system. He was working next to the rear wh eel well when gasoline vapors and the gas tank ignited. Employee #1 was wearing full face protection, a cotton shirt, and gloves. He suffered second- and third- degree burns to his ears and arms. The coworker had been standing by with ppe wh ile Employee #1 was using the torch. The proper procedure for vehicle disposal i ncluded removal of the battery, tires, and gas tank , with the tank taken out pr

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 30 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    10
    Hazardous substance
    1340
    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.