OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14493290
REF-CHEM CORP
ODESSA, TX·
Event description
Employee asphyxiated by nitrogen in sandblasting hood
Investigation abstract
When Employee #1 could not obtain breathing air from the installed line, he adap ted unapproved hoses with quick disconnects so he could connect a respirator for use in abrasive blasting to a gas line supplying a blasting pot. This piping wa s not color coded or labeled in accordance with company policy, so Employee #1 d id not know he was connecting to a nitrogen line instead of compressed air. He d ied of asphyxia. Since nitrogen is a waste gas in an air separation plant, it is used instead of compressed air for operating pneumatic equipment.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 33 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 31
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 19
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1900
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#981 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
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.