OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #800797
BURN,CHEST,STEAM LINE,ABDOMEN,GASKET,BOILER,STEAM,EXPLOSION,LEG
Event description
EMPLOYEE BURNED EXPLODING STEAM
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and coworker were changing a gasket in a steam line. Employee #1 ent found to be defective and there were no pressure gauges. ered a pit 3.5-ft by 10-ft deep using a ladder to loosen the bolts so that any w ater steam pressure could drain off. Employee #1 cut off the steam the day befor e on the boiler and locked onto when he thought it was drained. He returned to t he pit to remove the bolts and replace the gasket. The coworker removed the ladd er to allow work room and lowered a drop light. When Employee #1 removed the bol ts, there was an explosion of steam and water. Employee #1 tried to climb out us ing the droplight until he received assistance. He received second and third deg ree burns to his chest, abdomen and legs. The trap on the bottom of the pit was
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 42 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 549
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 13
- 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.