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Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #827899

LEAK,WORK RULES,ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE

Event
LEAK,WORK RULES,ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
827899
Report ID
751910

Event description

No one injured during phenol release at hospital

Investigation abstract

Employees working in a hospital's outpatient room were using phenol to treat ing rown toenails. On Friday, January 26, 1990, several nurses were restocking the s upply lockers and found they were out of phenol. The pharmacy sent down 5 ounces of phenol in a 10 percent solution in a plastic prescription bottle instead of the usual glass bottle. Over the weekend, the bottle melted, releasing the pheno l. At about 7:00 a.m. on January 29, 1990, a nurse smelled the phenol. She looke d in a cupboard and discovered the leak, and she and other nurses cleaned it up. There were no injuries.

Victims (7)

  1. #1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 26 F

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    12
    Source
    44
    Occupation code
    95
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    2040
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    12
    Source
    44
    Occupation code
    27
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    2040
    Task assigned
    1
  3. #3 Non-hospitalized injury Age 39 F

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    12
    Source
    44
    Occupation code
    95
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    2040
    Task assigned
    1
  4. #4 Non-hospitalized injury Age 35 F

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    12
    Source
    44
    Occupation code
    95
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    2040
    Task assigned
    1
  5. #5 Non-hospitalized injury Age 36 F

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    12
    Source
    44
    Occupation code
    95
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    2040
    Task assigned
    1
  6. #6 Non-hospitalized injury Age 46 F

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    12
    Source
    44
    Occupation code
    448
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Task assigned
    1
  7. #7 Non-hospitalized injury Age 40 F

    Nature of injury
    17
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    12
    Source
    44
    Occupation code
    95
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    7
    Hazardous substance
    2040
    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.