OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #601427
TANK TRUCK,PPE,WORK RULES,CLEANING,TOXIC ATMOSPHERE,OVEREXPOSURE,LIFELINE,VENTILATION,CONFINED SPACE
Event description
Employees die after being overcome in tanker trailer
Investigation abstract
At approximately 10:00 a.m. on June 7, 1988, Employee #1 entered a tanker traile r to clean it. The tanker had been hauling molasses and wastewater and was then emptied. Employee #1 did not test the air for oxygen, toxic gas, or combustibles and did not ventilate the tank or utilize a lifeline. There was no buddy system . The driver of the tractor trailer noticed a problem with Employee #1 and conta cted office personnel. Employee #2, a driver for John Fleming Trucking, dropped in to rescue Employee #1. He did not wear any personal protective equipment or l ifeline either and was also overcome by the toxic atmosphere. Fire rescue subseq uently retrieved both men, who later died.
Victims (3)
-
#1 Fatality Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 19
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1480
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Fatality Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 19
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1480
- Task assigned
- 2
-
#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
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.