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 #14516637

HEART ATTACK,WORK RULES,INHALATION,GAS,INTOXICATED,CHEMICAL VAPOR,NITROUS OXIDE

Event
HEART ATTACK,WORK RULES,INHALATION,GAS,INTOXICATED,CHEMICAL VAPOR,NITROUS OXIDE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14516637
Report ID
420600

Event description

Employee dies from heart attack while inhaling nitrous oxide

Investigation abstract

On or about May 20, 1987, Employee #1, age 17, put a garbage bag filled with nit rous oxide gas over his head to intoxicate himself. He died of a heart attack re lated to the inhalation of the nitrous oxide. He had been working alone and was found on the floor of the storage room by an employee of a nearby shop. The gas was used by Zack's Famous Frozen Yogurt to whip cream, and the tank was still on when Employee #1's body was found.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 17 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    8
    Source
    19
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    1953
    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.