OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14533129
ASPHYXIATED,REPAIR,VENTILATION,CONFINED SPACE,WORK RULES,INHALATION,NATURAL GAS,TANK,UNTRAINED,RESPIRATOR
Event description
Employee dies of asphyxia after being overcome by gas
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was repairing a sewage pump inside a 900 gallon cylindrical septic t ank that was 6 ft high, 5 1/2 ft diameter at the top, and 4 3/5 ft diameter at t he bottom. According to the medical examiner, Employee #1 was overcome by a gas, possibly methane. The autopsy report stated that Employee #1 died of asphyxia, which was secondary to methane inhalation. No methane was measured or detected b y the medical examiner. Employee #1 was not issued the proper respirator. Employ ees had not been trained.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 45 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 19
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 19
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1640
- 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.