OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #570440
ASPHYXIATED,DEMOLITION,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,BOLT,COLLAPSE,CEILING,CONSTRUCTION,SOFFIT,STRUCK BY,BURIED
Event description
One employee killed, one injured when ceiling collapses
Investigation abstract
At approximately 2:25 p.m. on December 27, 1984, Employee #1 was removing a susp e floor. The ceiling covered Employee #1 and he died of asphyxiation. Employee # 2 was hospitalized with a minor back puncture. The 1/4 in. fastening bolts of ha ngers supporting stringers and plaster at the floor beam connection had failed. The cause of the ceiling collapse in the older building has not been determined because the ceiling removal was on the newer building and only the direct connec tion between the newer and older buildings was plaster soffit. ended plaster ceiling in the newer of two buildings with a common basement. The two buildings were built approximately seven years apart. The ceilings in both b uildings were similar in construction, suspended and plastered with a soffit bet ween the two ceilings, which was also of plaster construction. A backhoe was bei ng used to pull down ceiling sections but burners were used to burn stringers an d hangers. The majority of the newer building ceiling had been removed. A backho e was removing a section approximately 10 ft by 20 ft near the soffit when the a pproximately 11,164 sq ft ceiling in the older building suddenly came down to th
Victims (4)
-
#1 Fatality Age 57 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 18
- Part of body
- 3
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#981 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
-
#982 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
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.