OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #816975
BURN,STATIC ELECTRICITY,ELECTRICAL,XYLENE,DRUM,FIRE,EXPLOSION
Event description
EMPLOYEE BURNED IN XYLENE EXPLOSION
Investigation abstract
An employee was working alone near a coating pot containing a solution of 50 per early that day that there was a lot of static electricity in the area. cent xylene, 15 percent sukucib rubber, and 35 percent filler. The pot held appr oximately 76 liters of the solution. The pot was part of a coating tower for coa ting fiberglass with a rubber solution. An explosion occurred, and the explosion and ensuing fire burned the employee over a large area of his body. He died of his injuries. Grounded 208-liter drums of the coating solution had exploded, and the explosion ignited the xylene. All electrical wiring and controls were explo sion proof. The only possible sources of ignition were tools and a key ring worn by the employee. He was wearing rubber-soled shoes, and employees reported that
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 36 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 20
- Environmental factor
- 10
- 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.