OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #977413

BURN,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,CLEANING,FIRE

1986-10-22T00:00:00

Event: BURN,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,CLEANING,FIRE
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 977413
Report ID: 454712

Event description

FLAMMABLE FLOOR CLEANER IGNITED; EMPLOYEE BURNED

Investigation abstract

TWO EMPLOYEES WERE CLEANING A CONCRETE FLOOR, USING A CLASS 1B FLAMMABLE LIQUID. THEY POURED THE LIQUID FROM A 55 GALLON DRUM ONTO THE FLOOR, THEN BEGAN TO USE A BATTERY POWERED HAKO SCRUBBER TO CLEAN THE FLOOR. THE VAPORS SUDDENLY IGNITED, PRODUCING FLAMES WHICH COMPLETELY ENGULFED EMPLOYEE #1. HE SUFFERED SECOND AND THIRD DEGREE BURNS OVER HIS ENTIRE BODY AND LATER DIED.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 22 M

Nature of injury
5

Part of body
4

Event type
14

Source
16

Occupation code
999

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
10

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.