OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #692368
BURN,ACETYLENE TORCH,SCREW CONVEYOR,WAREHOUSE,FIRE,EXPLOSION,MOLTEN METAL,GRAIN DUST
Event description
GRAIN-DUST FIRE AND EXPLOSION CAUSED BY TORCH
Investigation abstract
ON OCTOBER 4, 1986, EMPLOYEE #1 WAS CUTTING SCREW CONVEYOR BRACKETS WITH AN ACET YLENE TORCH SO THAT THE CONVEYOR COULD BE REMOVED FROM WAREHOUSE #1. THE CONVEYO R WAS ATTACHED TO OVERHEAD STEEL BEAMS. EMPLOYEE #1 WAS WORKING ON A TWO-TIER HI GH WORK STAND. THE SCREW CONVEYOR WAS COVERED WITH AN ACCUMULATION OF GRAIN DUST . SOME HOT SLAG DROPPED ONTO THE SCREW CONVEYOR, CAUSING SOME OF THE DUST TO BEC OME AIRBORNE AND IGNITE. THE SMALL, PRIMARY EXPLOSION DISTURBED MORE DUST, CAUSI NG IT TO BECOME AIRBORNE AND RESULTED IN THE LARGER, SECONDARY EXPLOSION. EMPLOY EE #1 SUFFERED SECOND DEGREE BURNS OVER 70% OF HIS BODY. HE DIED FROM COMPLICATI ONS 8 DAYS LATER.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 35 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 889
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- 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.