OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14561757
SUFFOLK ASPHALT MATERIALS, INC.
HAUPPAUGE, NY·
Event description
EMPLOYEE KILLED IN FIRE WHEN HOT ASPHALT CAUGHT FIRE
Investigation abstract
EMPLOYEE #1 WAS SEVERELY BURNED WHEN AN ASPHALT LINE HE WAS HEATING TO DISSOLVE A BLOCKAGE BROKE OPEN AND THE CONTENTS CAUGHT FIRE. HE WAS WORKING FROM THE FIRS T PLATFORM OF A BATCHING TOWER, APPROXIMATELY 15 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. THE ST ATIC PRESSURE IN THE LINE AND THE PRESSURE GENERATED BY HEATING THE ASPHALT AND THE #2 OIL IN THE LINE CAUSED THE LINE TO RUPTURE. THE ERUPTING COMBUSTIBLE CONT ENTS IMMEDIATELY IGNITED, CREATING A FIRE BALL 40 TO 50 FEET HIGH. EMPLOYEE #1 W AS COMPLETELY ENGULFED IN THE FIREBALL, AND LATER DIED AS A RESULT OF THE BURNS HE SUFFERED.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 45 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 10
- Hazardous substance
- 1480
- 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.