OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14468524
METHYL ALCOHOL,METHYLENE CHLORIDE,WORK RULES,TOXIC ATMOSPHERE,INHALATION,TOLUENE,DIP TANK,CHEMICAL VAPOR,POISONING,TOXIC FUMES
Event description
Employee died after inhaling toxic solvent vapors
Investigation abstract
At approximately 2 a.m., Employee #1 was stripping wooden furniture using a comm ercial strength stripper consisting of 87 percent methylene chloride, 10 percent methyl alcohol, and 3 percent toluene. The cleaning work was done at a dip tank with the lid open, and vapors probably accumulated in the breathing zone. Emplo yee #1 apparently lost consciousness and slumped, head first, into the tank. Alt hough his head remained above the level of the liquid, sampling revealed the con centrated vapors at that level to be over 1,500 parts per million. Employee #1 d ied from inhaling the toxic vapors.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 22 M
- Nature of injury
- 17
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 12
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1730
- Task assigned
- 2
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.