OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14532238
STUCK,DIVING,VALVE,MECH MALFUNCTION
Event description
Employee killed when diving suit is overinflated
Investigation abstract
During a SCUBA dive to locate oxygen welding gas cylinders in water that was 20 valve malfunctioned. The valve was stuck open, overinflating his suit. to 50 ft deep and 38 to 40 degrees F with a 20 ft visibility, Employee #1, a div er, ascended uncontrollably from a depth of about 45 ft suffering from extra-alv eolar air syndrome, which caused massive cerebral and cardiopulmonary emboli. Em ployee #1 was equipped with a DUI shell-type dry suit. The suit was equipped wit h rubber seals, a neoprene collar, Viking inflator connector valve, DUI Whites e xhaust valve, and neoprene boots. A single 80 cu ft air tank was the sole source of air for both Employee #1 and the dry suit. Evidence indicates that Employee #1 activated the valve to add air to his dry suit while swimming head down. The
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 41 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 41
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 18
- 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.