OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #914200
BIERLEIN SERVICES INC
BATTLE CREEK, MI·
Event description
Employee injured in sugar dust explosion
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and two coworkers were working in an 8 ft by 8 ft by 6 ft ventilated to have been an overheated bearing, which shattered. soundproof room (1100 cfm) where a hammer mill drives granulated sugar through a screen to produce fine powered sugar. The process was enclosed, but not ventil ated, though the equipment was in a ventilated room. An explosion occurred withi n the pulverizer and may have caused a secondary explosion in the soundproof roo m, which was extensively damaged along with the pulverizer. Two employees left t he room seconds before the explosion because they feared the outcome of the nois y bearings. Employee #1 sustained a sprained leg muscle. Extensive sugar dust ac cumulation on the floor and work surfaces was noted. The ignition source appears
Victim
-
#1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 50 M
- Nature of injury
- 20
- Part of body
- 24
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 12
- Environmental factor
- 15
- Hazardous substance
- 2285
- 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.