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 #14511992

SUMP TANK,METHYLENE CHLORIDE,WORK RULES,TOLUENE,CHEMICAL BURN,SKIN,POISONING,OVEREXPOSURE,CHEMICAL

Event
SUMP TANK,METHYLENE CHLORIDE,WORK RULES,TOLUENE,CHEMICAL BURN,SKIN,POISONING,OVEREXPOSURE,CHEMICAL
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14511992
Report ID
625400

Event description

Employee killed after exposure to sump tank chemicals

Investigation abstract

On March 13, 1987, Employee #1 was doing the daily check of the fluid level of a sump and went into the sump hole alone, without notifying anyone. The sump cont ained 2 to 4 in. of fluid from the plant's drains. The major contaminants in the fluid were methylene chloride, phenol, formic acid, and toluene. Employee #1 wa s found lying in the fluid at about 10:45 a.m. He had sustained chemical burns f rom adsorption of the hazardous chemicals and was killed.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 27 M

    Nature of injury
    4
    Part of body
    1
    Event type
    10
    Source
    9
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    9
    Hazardous substance
    1730
    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.