OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #822270
HEAD,WORK RULES,MECHANIC,HIGH PRESSURE,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,TANK,INATTENTION
Event description
Employee struck in head by nut from fuel tank
Investigation abstract
At 7:30 a.m. on June 20, 1988, Employee #1, a tire mechanic for E. L. Gardner In sition to release the pressure, Employee #1 started to unscrew the wing nut on t he hatch cover to release the air pressure. The wing nut flew off, striking the employee in the head. He was hospitalized. The tank was not stamped and had not been inspected in accordance with Maryland law. c., Crofton, MD, was at the south side of the plant yard checking the diesel fue l level in a 300-gallon metal tank that was under about 50 psi of pressure. The tank was equipped with a pressure gauge mounted on top of an air receiving fitti ng. The fitting had a hand-operated open and close lever. The tank did not have a spring-loaded safety relief valve. The hatch opening used to fill the tank was 4 in. in diameter and equipped with a quick-open hatch cover which, when closed , was secured by a 3-in.-long by 0.375-in. bolt passing through a 3- to 4-in.-lo ng wing nut. Instead of turning the hand lever on the air fitting to the open po
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 2
- Occupation code
- 885
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 5
- 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.