OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #968040
FLAMMABLE VAPORS,STUCK,WORK RULES,MECHANIC,TORCH,EXPLOSION,RESTRAINING DEVICE,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,TIRE
Event description
Two employees injured when tire explodes
Investigation abstract
Employees #1 and #2, the owner and a mechanic, respectively, of a tire repair sh a massive bruise on his upper leg when he was struck by a hammer. op, were attempting to remove a stuck #5 flange from the split rim of a deflated tire. When the valve stem and the lock ring were removed, a tube flap was found to be stuck under the #5 flange. Various methods were tried to remove the flang e, but without success. A solvent was then used in an attempt to melt the flap, but it did not work either. After approximately 30 minutes, Employee #1 tried us ing a torch to burn out the flap. The solvent and vapors exploded, propelling th e flange into his face. He sustained major damage to the right side of his face and to his right hand and a minor injury to his left hand. Employee #2 received
Victims (2)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 54 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 9
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 503
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 5
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 27 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 23
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 505
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 5
- 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.