OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14520985
BURN,IND TRK OPERATOR,WORK RULES,FIRE,BACK,EXPLOSION,INDUSTRIAL TRUCK,INEXPERIENCE,MOLTEN METAL,SPRAIN
Event description
One employee killed, five injured in molten metal explosion
Investigation abstract
During the second shift on October 22, a magnesium melting crew was topping off holding and charging furnace pots. As part of this process, Employee #1, a melte r, was to use a forklift attachment called a sludger to scoop and remove sludge from the bottom of the pot. Employee #1 had been on the job only two weeks. Ther e were two sludgers available for use but only one had been preheated. Employee #1 mistakenly took the cold sludger and immersed it in a bath of molten magnesiu m, causing an explosion. Employee #1 was killed. Employees #2 through #6 were in jured by the metal thrown from the pot. Employee #5 suffered a back sprain fight ing the fire.
Victims (6)
-
#1 Fatality Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 28
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 8
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 27 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 16
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 28
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 8
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Hospitalized Age 59 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 3
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 28
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 8
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#4 Non-hospitalized injury Age 40 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 7
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 28
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 8
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#5 Non-hospitalized injury Age 40 M
- Nature of injury
- 20
- Part of body
- 3
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Task assigned
- 2
-
#6 Hospitalized Age 22 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 12
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 28
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 8
- 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.