105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #607226

ELECTRIC ARC,ELECTRICAL,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,EXPLOSION,BURN,ELECTRIC CORD,ELECTRIC SAW,ELECTRIC LIGHT--PORT,GASOLINE,E GI V

Event
ELECTRIC ARC,ELECTRICAL,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,EXPLOSION,BURN,ELECTRIC CORD,ELECTRIC SAW,ELECTRIC LIGHT--PORT,GASOLINE,E GI V
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
607226
Report ID
418100

Event description

EXPLOSION IN UNDERGROUND GASOLINE STORAGE TANK

Investigation abstract

A tank-removal contractor was hired to remove an underground gasoline tank that percent of his body. He died approximately 2 weeks later. A submersible pump tub e had had gasoline trapped inside it and had apparently leaked flammable vapors into the tank. was approximately 20 years old. Another contractor had uncovered the tank and va cuumed it out. The owner of the tank-removal company and his employee cut the to p of the 30-kiloliter tank and peeled it back with a backhoe. The second contrac tor washed and again vacuumed the tank, then left the site. The tank-removal con tractor and his employee took a 30-minute lunch break and returned. The employee entered the tank with a stepladder, an electric saw, and a droplight to remove something inside the tank. When either the contractor or his employee firmly plu gged in the droplight cord, an explosion occurred, burning the employee over 80

Victims (4)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 32 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    10
    Hazardous substance
    1340
    Task assigned
    2
  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
  3. #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
  4. #983 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.