OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #745349
J M HUBER CORPORATION -CHEMICAL DIVISION
HAVRE DE GRACE, MD·
Event description
Employee killed in fall from ladder after suffering attack
Investigation abstract
On March 21, 1989, Employee #1, a chemical plant operator, began his shift at 12 n the ladder something happened that caused him to fall to the concrete floor. A t about 1:45 a.m., a supervisor found Employee #1 lying on his back at the botto m of a nine rung metal ladder that led to a platform walkway 9 ft 7 in. above th e floor. He was unconscious but breathing. His hard hat and safety glasses were lying beside him. A small amount of blood was at the back of his head. One of hi s feet was under the base of the ladder. Employee #1 was taken to Hanford Memori al hospital, where he died. Employee #1's last physical, in November 1988, showe d no health problems. He was supposed to take insulin for a diabetic condition. According to his wife, he had not been taking his insulin shots. Two witnesses s tated that Employee #1 bought eclairs to work the morning of March 20, 1989. Whi :00 midnight. At approximately 12:15 a.m., he met with the relief operator and p le working in the area, he possibly suffered some sort of attack, which caused h im to fall to the floor and strike his head. A preliminary medical examiner's re port showed that Employee #1 suffered hypertension and cardiovascular disease. roceeded with his rounds, walking through the boiler room and marking off items on his checklist. A round is made hourly to check various instruments and look f or possible problems. The job is done alone, and should take no longer than 10 m inutes. One of the areas he had to check was the carbon dioxide measuring appara tus located on the east wall of the boiler room behind the boilers. Apparently, Employee #1 noticed a water leak above the boiler and climbed the ladder to the platform to see where it was coming from. Either on his way up or on his way dow
Victim
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#981
Labels are OSHA's own, from the code dictionary published with the accident-investigation file. The raw code is shown beside each one so this page can be reconciled against OSHA's bulk data. OSHA notes that nature of injury, part of body, source of injury and accident type in this file are not coded to the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, and that the occupation titles are not standardised — so these values are not directly comparable with the OIICS-coded severe injury reports.