104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14497796

FLAMMABLE LIQUID,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,RAILROAD TANK CAR,WORK RULES,FIRE,LIGHTING FIXTURE,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,EXPLOSION,CHEMICAL VAPOR

Event
FLAMMABLE LIQUID,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,RAILROAD TANK CAR,WORK RULES,FIRE,LIGHTING FIXTURE,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,EXPLOSION,CHEMICAL VAPOR
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14497796
Report ID
626600

Event description

One employee killed, one injured, in tank car explosion

Investigation abstract

Employees #1 and #2 were cleaning methyl acrylate from a railroad tank car. Empl oyee #2 entered the tank to check for residue. As he was coming out of the manwa y, a fire and explosion occurred. Employee #2 was killed and Employee #1 was inj ured. The source of ignition is believed to have been an arc from a Woodhead exp losion-proof light that was hanging in the manway and that had pulled loose from the light terminals. The atmosphere in the tank car had not been tested.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 26 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    9
    Event type
    14
    Source
    9
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    10
    Hazardous substance
    1774
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Fatality Age 31 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    14
    Source
    9
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    10
    Hazardous substance
    1774
    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.