OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #893875
S. J. BELL CONSTRUCTION CO., INC.
WOODBRIDGE, VA·
Event description
Employee injured in flash fire inside pipe
Investigation abstract
At approximately 8:00 a.m. on March 14, 1989, Employee #1 and his foreman entere from the flammable gases that had accumulated inside the pipe overnight. He sust ained second-degree burns to his hands, face, and neck. Causal factors related t o this accident were the lack of training on confined space entry procedures and the employee's failure to monitor the air quality inside the pipe prior to entr y. d a 12 ft wide by 43 ft long by 13 ft deep trench to check a joint on a 24 in. d uctile iron water line pipe that had been laid the previous day. They were prote cted by a trench box. The pipe section had been maneuvered around that morning t o get it in the proper alignment with the pipe section toward which it was headi ng. Employee #1 crawled 20 ft inside the pipe to check that the gasket between t he new section and the pipe to which it was connected had not been pushed out by the shifting of the pipe. When Employee #1 reached the gasket, he struck a matc h to see what he was doing, resulting in a spontaneous explosion and flash fire
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 47 Male
- Nature of injury
- Burn/Scald(Heat) (5)
- Part of body
- MULTIPLE (19)
- Accident type
- OTHER (14)
- Source of injury
- GASES (19)
- Occupation
- Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters (585)
- Human factor
- MISJUDGMENT, HAZ. SITUATION (1)
- Environmental factor
- GAS/VAPOR/MIST/FUME/SMOKE/DUST (7)
- Task assigned
- Task regularly assigned (1)
Labels are OSHA's own, from the code dictionary published with the accident-investigation file. The raw code is shown beside each one so this page can be reconciled against OSHA's bulk data. OSHA notes that nature of injury, part of body, source of injury and accident type in this file are not coded to the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, and that the occupation titles are not standardised — so these values are not directly comparable with the OIICS-coded severe injury reports.