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 #914283

WORK RULES,ANIMAL HANDLER,ANIMAL BITE,INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Event
WORK RULES,ANIMAL HANDLER,ANIMAL BITE,INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
914283
Report ID
552624

Event description

One employee dies, one infected from monkey bite or scratch

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, a handler at a research lab, was bitten by a rabid monkey and contr acted the herpes B virus (monkey virus). The virus led to encephalitis, of which Employee #1 died. Employee #2 was also found to be infected, but was treated wi th anti-viral drugs and was subsequently released from the hospital. One wilful and five serious violations were issued for recordkeeping and failure to follow appropriate published CDC guidelines for monkey handlers.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 23 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    31
    Event type
    3
    Source
    3
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    18
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Hospitalized Age 20 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    31
    Event type
    3
    Source
    3
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    18
    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.