OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #884437
VENTILATION,WORK RULES,INHALATION,AIR CONTAMINATION,POISONING,OVEREXPOSURE,CARBON MONOXIDE
Event description
Employees become ill after inhaling carbon monoxide
Investigation abstract
At 9:00 a.m. on September 21, 1989, Employees #1 through #7 entered a work area at the Hyatt Hotel's Alpine Jack Restaurant to remove asbestos. An electric powe r washer was not working so a gasoline-powered machine was brought in as a repla cement. The contained work area had 4,000 cfm negative air ventilation, which wa s not capable of removing carbon monoxide from the machine's exhaust fast enough to prevent carbon monoxide from building up to dangerous levels (estimated in e xcess of 200 ppm). By 11:00 a.m. the employees began to feel sick and by 12:30 p .m. they left the area, suffering from various symptoms. All seven employees wer e hospitalized and one required the use of a hyperbaric chamber.
Victims (7)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0560
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 21 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0560
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Hospitalized Age 25 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0560
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#4 Hospitalized Age 40 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0560
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#5 Hospitalized Age 22 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0560
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#6 Hospitalized Age 28 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0560
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#7 Hospitalized Age 41 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 25
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0560
- 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.