OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #517060
BURN,COMPRESSOR,E GI V,STATIC ELECTRICITY,ELECTRICAL,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,LOW FLASH POINT,EXPLOSION,BONDING,MECH MALFUNCTION
Event description
One employee killed, another injured in explosion
Investigation abstract
On March 25, 1989, Employee #1 was operating a vacuum truck that was emptying a 5,682-liter lube oil reservoir for the compressor on an alkalization unit. Due t o a mechanical failure of the compressor, isobutane mixed with seal oil and appr oximately 1135 liters of contaminated oil was pumped into the lube oil reservoir . The flash point of the oil was lowered from 198 degrees to 23 degrees Celsius. Employee #1 had not grounded or bonded the truck to control static electricity, and the flammable vapors ignited. The resulting explosion killed Employee #1, a nd caused first-, second-, and third-degree burns over the face, head, hands, an d arms of Employee #2. Employee #2 was hospitalized for his injuries.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 36 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 31
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 10
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 48 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 10
- 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.