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 #14570113

HEAD,KILN,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,NATURAL GAS,EXPLOSION,SPARK,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,MECH MALFUNCTION

Event
HEAD,KILN,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,NATURAL GAS,EXPLOSION,SPARK,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,MECH MALFUNCTION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14570113
Report ID
522500

Event description

Employee killed in natural gas explosion

Investigation abstract

Employee # 1 was operating a 90 degree F kiln fired by a gas burner to cure conc rete blocks. The safety device on the burner had failed, allowing gas to enter t he kiln without igniting. Employee #1 was just leaving for the day, and probably noticed that the REST button on the burner had popped out. He pushed it, causin g a spark that ignited the gas. The explosion caused extensive damage to the kil n, adjoining kilns, and the building. Employee #1 suffered head injuries when he was struck by flying concrete blocks. He was killed.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 41 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    19
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    5
    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.