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 #879585

BARGE,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,PROPANE TORCH,TORCH,EXPLOSION,PROPANE

Event
BARGE,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,PROPANE TORCH,TORCH,EXPLOSION,PROPANE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
879585
Report ID
830300

Event description

Employee killed in propane gas explosion on barge

Investigation abstract

Propane gas torches were being used to melt ice in the bilge of a barge. One of the torches flamed out, allowing unburned propane gas to accumulate in the bilge area. The accumulated gas exploded, killing Employee #1 instantly.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 45 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    6
    Source
    35
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    7
    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.