105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14559744

BURN,BUTANE,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,FIRE,GAS LEAK,COMMUNICATION

Event
BURN,BUTANE,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,FIRE,GAS LEAK,COMMUNICATION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14559744
Report ID
855610

Event description

One employee dies and one injured in fire caused by gas leak

Investigation abstract

At the shift change, employees reported a butane leak that had started approxima #2 was hospitalized for burns. tely 10 minutes before shift change. The shift foreman had initiated an approxim ately three-hour shut down for the unit, including the F3 drum. At the time of t he accident, supervisors were communicating end of shift information. Employee # 1, who was starting his regular shift in the area of the leak, was independently trying to hook up a relief line to attempt to divert some of the pressure to th e flare line. Employee #2 (who was not assigned to the area) came to assist him. While they were finding fittings and preparing to hook up the diversion line, t he butane ignited, causing an intense fire. Employee #1 was killed and Employee

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 33 M

    Nature of injury
    4
    Part of body
    31
    Event type
    2
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    0420
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Hospitalized Age 31 M

    Nature of injury
    4
    Part of body
    9
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    0420
    Task assigned
    2

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.