OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #822445
WESTERN MARYLAND COLLEGE
WESTMINSTER, MD·
Event description
Employees ill after exposure to toxic gas
Investigation abstract
An employee of a pool supply company inadvertently filled a 55 gallon tank conta ining a residue of muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid used as a cleanser), with 28 gallons of sodium hypochlorite (a solution commonly used to remove pool bacteri a). This caused a chemical reaction and the resulting gas immediately passed thr ough several buildings. Employees #1 and #2 were treated for asphyxia at Carroll County General Hospital and released the same day.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 48 F
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 426
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0640
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 35 F
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 433
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0640
- 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.