OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #742379
WORK RULES,OIL TANK,WELDER,STORAGE TANK,WELDING,EXPLOSION,COMBUSTIBLE LIQUID,STRUCK BY,CONCUSSION,HAND
Event description
Employee hospitalized after oil tank explosion
Investigation abstract
At 3:00 p.m. on August 4, 1989, Employee #1 wanted to weld angle iron to the fee t of an old, 275 gallon fuel tank that had been used for storing oil, to prevent the feet from sinking into the asphalt in hot weather. Gasoline or thinner may have been mixed into the tank. Employee #1 emptied the tank but did not clean it because, he reasoned, the welding would be on the feet, which were 6 in. from t he tank proper. With a coworker standing by, Employee #1, using a gasoline-power ed electric welder, began to weld a 3 in. by 3 in. by 36 in. angle iron to the t ank feet. The tank immediately exploded. Employee #1 suffered a concussion and a crushing injury to his right hand. The coworker escaped injury.
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 6
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 285
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 10
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.