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 #14478101

MAINTENANCE,WALL,KILN,COLLAPSE,CEILING,CONSTRUCTION,CRUSHED,UNTRAINED

Event
MAINTENANCE,WALL,KILN,COLLAPSE,CEILING,CONSTRUCTION,CRUSHED,UNTRAINED
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14478101
Report ID
111100

Event description

Employee crushed by collapsing wall and ceiling of kiln

Investigation abstract

Seven employees were chipping away an excessive build up of lime on the inside o . As he took over, he stated that the path (or keyway) was too narrow. Suddenly the wall and ceiling behind him fell and drove him to the floor. The opposite wa ll then fell on top of the employee, crushing him to death. The employees had be en inadequately trained to identify safety hazards and the proper precautions to be taken. No predetermined safe width was provided to the employees for the pat hway cut through the top portion of the kiln. f a horizontal lime kiln. The kiln was 300 feet long and 10.5 feet in diameter. The lime was built up to a depth of about 3 feet. The first shift had finished c leaning all but a 15-foot section when the second shift (including employee #1) reported for work. The second shift divided into two three-man crews and began t o chip a path through the top part of the remaining section. The first crew comp leted chipping a path 1.5 to 2 feet wide through about 14 feet of the remaining 15-foot section. Employee #1 and his two coworkers took over the chipping job. E mployee #1 asked the employee who had started the chipping if he could take over

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 35 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    1
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    13
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    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.