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Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #827584

TANK TRUCK,CONFINED SPACE,DROWN,WATER

Event
TANK TRUCK,CONFINED SPACE,DROWN,WATER
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
827584
Report ID
751910

Event description

Employee drowns in tank

Investigation abstract

At approximately 10:00 on September 20, 1989, employees received a semi-tank tru ck containing beef blood that was to be made into pet food. After draining, Empl oyee #1, following standard operating procedures, dropped through the truck's 19 in. wide top hatch 5ft 6in. to its floor. At about 11:40 p.m., Employee #3 told Employee #4 that Employee #1 was down in the tanker. Employee #4 had the water turned off and tied the hose around himself as a lifeline. Holding his breath, E mployee #4 found Employee #1, who had drowned. The plant had no emergency or con fined space plan.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 33 M

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    1
    Event type
    8
    Source
    19
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    18
    Environmental factor
    8
    Hazardous substance
    1480
    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.