OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14492011
RAE METAL PRODUCTS CO., INC.
CLIFTON, NJ·
Event description
Two employees burned by molten plastic
Investigation abstract
At approximately 8:00 a.m. on November 24, 1986, Employees #1 and #2 were attemp ting to remove a solid plastic plug from the feed part on the barrel of a prepla sticizer injection mold unit. The employees were using a propane torch to melt t he plug and tools, including a screwdriver, to dislodge and remove loosened plas tic material. Apparently, the material in the barrel overheated, causing the pre ssure to increase. When the plug was removed, molten plastic (polypropylene and azodicarbonamide blowing agent with pigment) was propelled into the faces of bot h employees and onto Employee #2's wrist. Both employees were hospitalized for t reatment of burns.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 25 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 9
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 9
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 40 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 9
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 9
- 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.