OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #848713

ASPHYXIATED,COLLAPSE,WORK RULES,SAFETY BELT,FLOWING MATERIAL,UNSTABLE SURFACE,BRIDGED MATERIAL,BURIED,HOPPER,SILO

1988-11-21T00:00:00

Event: ASPHYXIATED,COLLAPSE,WORK RULES,SAFETY BELT,FLOWING MATERIAL,UNSTABLE SURFACE,BRIDGED MATERIAL,BURIED,HOPPER,SILO
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 848713
Report ID: 524200

Event description

Employee dies of asphyxia in concrete hopper silo

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 entered an aggregate hopper/silo in a concrete block manufacturing f acility to free up accumulations of material clinging to its walls. Employee #1 did not know that the material had bridged over a void. Employee #1 climbed a fi xed ladder into the hopper, stepped out onto the material, and began to poke it with a rod. The material gave way under him. Employee #1 was engulfed in the mat erial, asphyxiated, and killed. Appropriate safety harnessing equipment was not available.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 29 M

Nature of injury
2

Part of body
31

Event type
12

Source
43

Occupation code
999

Human factor
10

Environmental factor
13

Task assigned
2

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.