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 #686329

AIR PRESSURE,MAINTENANCE,CONSTRUCTION,STORAGE TANK,RUPTURE,HIGH PRESSURE,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT

Event
AIR PRESSURE,MAINTENANCE,CONSTRUCTION,STORAGE TANK,RUPTURE,HIGH PRESSURE,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
686329
Report ID
855610

Event description

Employee killed when struck by ruptured pressurized tank

Investigation abstract

A 1,000 gallon atmospheric storage tank containing approximately 750 to 900 gall ons of antifreeze was being pressurized with a 130 psi air compressor to check f or leaks in a boiler heating system. As Employee #1 further opened the line valv e to get more fluid flowing into the system, one end of the tank ruptured. The f orce propelled the skid mounted tank 8 to 10 ft into Employee #1, hurling him 10 ft from the tank through an open doorway into the building. Employee #1 died.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    1
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    849
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    15
    Task assigned
    2

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.