OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #775593
CLEANING,NATURAL GAS,HIGH PRESSURE,VALVE,OIL WELL SERVICING,FROZEN,OVEREXPOSURE,PRESSURE RELEASE
Event description
Employee killed from overexposure to natural gas
Investigation abstract
Employees were making preparations to pull the casing from a well that was to be /cold injury. abandoned. Employee #1 cleaned out a valve and thought it was clear, but, in fa ct, there was an obstruction. He then checked for gas pressure and, when no gas escaped, he mistakenly assumed there was no pressure. He opened the valve wider, which cleared the obstruction, and natural gas rushed out of the well. Employee #1 was trapped in the cellar for about 10 minutes until the flow could be stopp ed. Natural gas, which is predominantly methane, has refrigerant properties. The substantial reduction in pressure as the gas escaped from the well caused a sig nificant decrease in the temperature of the gas. Employee #1 died from frostbite
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 33 M
- Nature of injury
- 13
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 10
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- 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.