OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #867572

AMPUTATED,WELL,EXPLOSION,WELLHEAD,ARM,PRESSURE RELEASE

1989-02-28T00:00:00

Event: AMPUTATED,WELL,EXPLOSION,WELLHEAD,ARM,PRESSURE RELEASE
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 867572
Report ID: 522300

Event description

EMPLOYEE KILLED WHEN EQUIPMENT EXPLODES

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was working in a salt brine well located in an isolated rural area. The brine well was a concrete pit 16.25 in. by 8 ft 4 in. by 7 ft 8 in. deep wit h well pump equipment in the pit. Employee #1 was in the process of releasing pr essure off the wellhead by pumping nitrogen into the well to force out the brine . A muffler was used to silence the noise from the 1700 lbs of pressure created at the wellhead. A shutoff valve had been installed on the exit end of the muffl er, which caused the muffler to explode, amputating Employee #1's arm and killin g him.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 50 M

Nature of injury
1

Part of body
2

Event type
1

Source
2

Occupation code
999

Human factor
6

Environmental factor
5

Hazardous substance
1900

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.