OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #784470

ASPHYXIATED,DRAIN PIPE,SCUBA,DROWN,DIVER

1989-07-12T00:00:00

Event: ASPHYXIATED,DRAIN PIPE,SCUBA,DROWN,DIVER
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 784470
Report ID: 452110

Event description

SCUBA DIVER KILLED WHEN SUCKED INTO UNDERWATER DRAIN PIPE

Investigation abstract

Employees #1 and #2, both of whom worked for Louisville Water Company, entered a water basin to unclog a drain. Neither diver was tied off to the surface, or ab le to communicate with anyone on the surface or with each other. They were using a fire hose to unclog the drain, which was filled with silt and mud. When the d rain was finally cleared, great suction resulted. Employee #1 was sucked into th e drain. Because visibility was zero, Employee #2 did not know that Employee #1 was in the drain. When Employee #2 surfaced, everyone realized that Employee #1 had not surfaced. Despite repeated attempts, Employee #2 was unable to locate Em ployee #1. Employee #1 was killed as a result of asphyxiation.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 32 M

Nature of injury
2

Part of body
5

Event type
2

Source
41

Occupation code
999

Human factor
20

Environmental factor
18

Task assigned
2

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.