OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14484224
FINCH PRUYN & CO. INC.
GLENS FALLS, NY·
Event description
Employee dies after exposure to fiberglass chemicals
Investigation abstract
At approximately 2:35 p.m. on April 1, 1986, an employee noticed product liquor out of the area to a chemical building about 100 ft east of the tanks, where he soaked Employee #1 with water from a hose. They were forced to evacuate that ar ea due to a cloud of mist. Employee #1 collapsed as they tried to reach the pulp mill, where he died. Cause of death was pulmonary edema from inhaling a chemica l mist of sulfur dioxide or sulfuric acid. Employee #1 also suffered chemical bu rns over 90 percent of his body. leaking from a 20,000 gallon fiberglass chemical holding tank outside of the sul fur building. He notified plant maintenance. Employee #1 and a coworker joined h im at tank #1, where they decided to close the valve to isolate it from connecte d tank #2. After closing the valve, the employee who had discovered the leak wen t directly to the pulp mill to discuss how to pump out tank #1, leaving Employee #1 and the other coworker at the site. In the approximately two minutes it took him to reach the pulp mill, the 20 in. manhole assembly on tank #1 gave way, sp lashing Employee #1 and engulfing him in a cloud of gas. The coworker pulled him
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 42 M
- Nature of injury
- 4
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2290
- 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.