OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14464762
BURN,E GI V,ELECTRICAL,CONFINED SPACE,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,FIRE,EXPLOSION,ELECTRIC LIGHT--PORT,PAINTER,EQUIPMENT APPROVAL
Event description
Burn - Explosion Caused by Electric Equipment
Investigation abstract
Two employees were assigned the job of spray painting the interior of four filte r vessels, each about 12 feet in diameter and 15 feet high. They were expected t o paint two tanks apiece. One employee finished his work and decided to help his coworker. Temporary lighting was furnished by a 500-watt, 120-volt "quartzlite" with a T3 tungsten-halogen lamp. The paint mix had flashpoints of 95 degrees F, base, and 104 degrees F. The spray paint vapors ignited, causing a flash fire o f several seconds duration. The two employees were burned over much of their bod ies and were hospitalized for their injuries. The vapors could have been ignited by the heat of the lamp or by a fault in the electric circuit.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 33 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 579
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 579
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- 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.