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 #689141

BURN,E GI V,ELECTRICAL,COAL DUST,EXPLOSION,ELEC UTILITY WORK,ELECTRIC LIGHT--PORT,EQUIPMENT APPROVAL

Event
BURN,E GI V,ELECTRICAL,COAL DUST,EXPLOSION,ELEC UTILITY WORK,ELECTRIC LIGHT--PORT,EQUIPMENT APPROVAL
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
689141
Report ID
552700

Event description

BURN - COAL DUST EXPLOSION CAUSED BY DEFECTIVE LIGHT

Investigation abstract

A lead worker and four other employees were assigned the task of changing dust f ght was on, one of the two employees on the floor level turned to adjust his dus t mask. When he turned back, he noticed coal dust falling on the light and reali zed that that was an explosion hazard. He reached for the light, and it exploded , burning him and his coworker on the arms, face, and neck. The two employees we re hospitalized for their injuries. ilter bags on a coal dust collector at an electric power generation plant. Using their employer's energy control procedures, they isolated the system and set up the job. The lead worker was then called to the supervisors' office. The other four employees continued the job. Two of them were working at the floor level. T he other two were at an upper level on a work platform. The area was classified as a Class 2, Division 1 hazardous location throughout the entire room. The empl oyees were using two portable 500-watt quartz lights--one on the work platform a nd one at floor level. The light at floor level had a broken lens. While this li

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 34 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    2
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    889
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    9040
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Hospitalized Age 26 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    2
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    889
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    9040
    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.