OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14552442

CHEST,ASPHYXIATED,COLLAPSE,INADEQUATE MAINT,WORK RULES,BROKEN WELD,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,CRUSHED,STORAGE RACK,UNSTABLE POSITION

1985-04-16T00:00:00

Event: CHEST,ASPHYXIATED,COLLAPSE,INADEQUATE MAINT,WORK RULES,BROKEN WELD,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,CRUSHED,STORAGE RACK,UNSTABLE POSITION
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 14552442
Report ID: 213400

Event description

Employee killed when crushed under collapsed storage rack

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was underneath a 50 in. wide by 84 in. long by 72 in. high Thornton container rack that was loaded with drum rings. He was emptying a lower rack to make room for newly arrived steel head closing rings when the upper rack collaps ed. Employee #1 suffered traumatic asphyxiation due to chest compression and was killed. The total overhead weight was 4,300 lb: 3,850 lb of drum rings plus 450 lb of rock weight. The cause of the event was an unbalanced load in conjunction with rusted welds and lack of stability due to empty lower racks.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 44 M

Nature of injury
2

Part of body
5

Event type
2

Source
43

Occupation code
999

Human factor
18

Environmental factor
6

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.