105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #848192

BURN,HEART,HEART ATTACK,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,NATURAL GAS,GAS,EXPLOSION,PIPE

Event
BURN,HEART,HEART ATTACK,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,NATURAL GAS,GAS,EXPLOSION,PIPE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
848192
Report ID
524200

Event description

Employee dies after suffering burns in belowground explosion

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was approximately 19 feet below ground level trying to cut a metal p ipe that was obstructing the use of an air ranger. He had been trying to free it with a shovel and had evidently dislodged methane gas. A blow torch was lowered to him to cut the pipe and when it was lit, an explosion occurred. Employee #1 suffered third-degree burns over 80 percent of his body. He died of a heart atta ck about a week later in the hospital.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 26 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    12
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    18
    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.