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 #977249

FRACTURE,BOSUN CHAIR,LIFELINE,WORK RULES,BROKEN WELD,CONSTRUCTION,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,FALL,SCAFFOLD RIGGING,WATER TANK

Event
FRACTURE,BOSUN CHAIR,LIFELINE,WORK RULES,BROKEN WELD,CONSTRUCTION,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,FALL,SCAFFOLD RIGGING,WATER TANK
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
977249
Report ID
454714

Event description

Employee injured in fall from boatswain's scaffold rigging

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was sandblasting the interior of a 70-ft-high municipal water storag e tank. A swivel attaching a boatswain's seat to an extendible boom rig disengag ed, causing the employee to fall 35 ft to the floor of the tank. He sustained se rious injuries, including multiple fractures, and was hospitalized. The swivel, manufactured by the Durbin Company, St. Louis, MO, was marked "no hoisting" and had a load limit of 3,940 lb. A spot weld on the lower nut apparently gave way a nd allowed the lower portion of the swivel to fall. The employee had not been at tached to the structure by an independent lifeline.

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 35 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    17
    Event type
    5
    Source
    24
    Occupation code
    556
    Human factor
    9
    Environmental factor
    13
    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.