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 #734897

OXYGEN DEFICIENCY,ASPHYXIATED,WORK RULES,INHALATION,NITROUS OXIDE

Event
OXYGEN DEFICIENCY,ASPHYXIATED,WORK RULES,INHALATION,NITROUS OXIDE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
734897
Report ID
454520

Event description

Employee dies after intentionally inhaling nitrous oxide

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was a work study student employed as a dishwasher in a laboratory. W hile he was in the lab, he filled a plastic trash bag with nitrous oxide, then p laced it over his head and inhaled. He passed out and died. The cause of death w as listed as anoxic brain death.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 33 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    8
    Source
    19
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    18
    Hazardous substance
    1953
    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.