OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #950626
LOUDOUN QUARRIES
STERLING, VA·
Event description
Employees asphyxiate when engulfed by material in sand bin
Investigation abstract
At approximately 11:00 a.m. on July 5, 1988, Employees #1, #2, and #3 entered a to his waist, incurring only minor injuries. The main causal factor appears to have been inadequate preparation and use of improper procedures while undertakin g this task. quarry sand bin to clear material that had built up inside and was clogging up t he funnel. The bin was cone-shaped measuring 20 to 25 inches high, 12 feet in di ameter, and narrowing to approximately 18 inches at the base. Material is dumped in at the top and a sifter allows finely crushed material to funnel out the bot tom. Material had built up on the sides as high as the Employees' heads. They ap parently entered the bin before scraping down this material and when the materia l broke loose, Employees #1 and #2 were completely engulfed and subsequently asp hyxiated. Employee #3 apparently jumped in to try to save them and was buried up
Victims (3)
-
#1 Fatality Age 29 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Fatality Age 34 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Non-hospitalized injury Age 46 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 16
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- 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.