OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #594044
OXYGEN DEFICIENCY,SEWER,UNCONSCIOUSNESS,ASPHYXIATED,LIFELINE,VENTILATION,CONFINED SPACE,CPR,WORK RULES,RESPIRATOR
Event description
One employee dies, one survives apparent asphyxia in manhole
Investigation abstract
Employee #2 entered a 22 ft deep sewer with no monitoring, no ventilation, no re spiratory protection, and no lifeline, and was overcome by an apparent lack of o xygen. He fell unconscious to the bottom of the manhole. Employee #1 entered the sewer to rescue Employee #2 but was also overcome. A third employee entered and unstacked the bodies of Employees #1 and #2. He was able, with some assistance, to exit without falling unconscious. The local fire department was called and f iremen, wearing scba, entered the sewer, removed both bodies, and administered f irst aid (CPR). Employee #2 was revived but Employee #1 never regained conscious ness and died.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 35 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 12
- Source
- 40
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 28 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 12
- Source
- 40
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 18
- 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.