OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #783738
WORK RULES,INHALATION,PERCHLOROETHYLENE,SPILL,TOXIC FUMES,OVEREXPOSURE,UNTRAINED,CHEMICAL,INATTENTION,RESPIRATOR
Event description
Employee hospitalized after exposure to perchloroethylene
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 forgot to turn off a valve after filling a 5-gallon pail and spilled 1 to 1.5 gallons of perchlorethylene. He used rags to clean the spill and did n ot wear a respirator. Employee #1, who was overcome and suffered seizures, was h ospitalized for 2 days in intensive care, and then released. He had been imprope rly trained on how to use respirators. In addition, the employer had no written policy for respirators and provided no training on wearing or fitting them.
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 23 M
- Nature of injury
- 17
- Part of body
- 29
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 19
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2020
- 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.