OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14544100
BURN,INADEQUATE MAINT,PRESSURE VESSEL,WORK RULES,CLEANING,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,HIGH PRESSURE,ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE,PRESSURE RELEASE,HOT WATER
Event description
Employee killed when pressure vessel fails
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was attempting to backwash a Zeolite water softener vessel. The regu lar backwash pump was out of service and a much larger substitute pump was being used. The vessel's backwash outlet valve was not marked and Employee #1 failed to open it properly. The oversized substitute pump caused the vessel to become o verpressurized and it failed, shooting hot water onto Employee #1. He suffered s calding burns and was killed. The vessel had been altered with improper welds an d was not fitted with pressure relief devices.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 32 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 6
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 15
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.