OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14475388

AIR PRESSURE,OPEN VALVE,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EXPLOSION,HIGH PRESSURE,PURGING,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,WATER TANK

1986-01-10T00:00:00

Event: AIR PRESSURE,OPEN VALVE,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EXPLOSION,HIGH PRESSURE,PURGING,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,WATER TANK
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 14475388
Report ID: 625100

Event description

Employee killed when struck by exploding water tank

Investigation abstract

At approximately 8:30 p.m. on January 10, 1986, Employee #1 was walking around t he end of a 2,000 gallon water tank. The tank was half full while water lines we re being purged using 110 psi of air pressure. Due to an employee error, a valve to the plant lines had been closed and the valve to the water tank opened. The top half of the water tank become overpressurized and the end of the tank blew o ut, striking Employee #1. He was killed instantly.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 26 M

Nature of injury
12

Part of body
19

Event type
1

Source
2

Occupation code
503

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
15

Hazardous substance
8880

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.