OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #689059

FRACTURE,ACETYLENE TORCH,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,DRUM,EXPLOSION,SKULL,STRUCK BY,BRAIN,CUTTING AND BURNING

1985-04-02T00:00:00

Event: FRACTURE,ACETYLENE TORCH,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,DRUM,EXPLOSION,SKULL,STRUCK BY,BRAIN,CUTTING AND BURNING
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 689059
Report ID: 552700

Event description

Employee killed when welding torch ignites fumes in drum

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was using an oxyacetylene torch to cut the top of a 55 gallon drum t hat had contained lacquer. The fumes exploded and the drum hit the employee in t he head, fracturing his skull and causing brain damage, of which the employee di ed immediately. The employer stated that Employee #1 had been told to use a hamm er and chisel. He had already used the torch to cut the tops off four other drum s.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 21 M

Nature of injury
12

Part of body
13

Event type
1

Source
7

Occupation code
889

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
5

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.