OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14570618
BURN,LADLE,FIRE,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,MOLTEN METAL,OVERHEAD CRANE,SPILL,COMBUSTIBLE DUST
Event description
Employee dies of burns when molten iron spills and ignites
Investigation abstract
On July 13, 1988, a 30-ton ladle containing 50,000 lb of molten iron snapped and spilled an unknown quantity of iron onto the floor at the south end of a 20 ft pit in an iron foundry. A flash fire was immediately created by the combustion o f the molten iron and foundry dust. The flames reached above the Alliance overhe ad cab crane that had been used to pour the iron. Employee #1 was engulfed in fl ames and died of burns to 95% of his body. Two coworkers, a utility man and a cr aneman, were both burned in the accident. The spill occurred during the pour of Roll K-7573, size 53 in. by 51 in., for U.S. Steel. No human error was determine d.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 39 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 23
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 18
- 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.