OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #979047
MOUNTAIN BELL (A U.S. WEST CO)
SUN LAKES, AZ·
Event description
Employee dies of burns after explosion
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and a coworker, loop technicians for Mountain Bell, were making tele s sustained in the explosion. phone repairs inside a 4 ft deep by 4 ft 1/2 in. wide by 7 ft long excavation. E mployee #1 was flame brushing a damage telephone line while the coworker stood a t ground level on the south wall, watching him. The employee turned off the torc h and laid it on a blanket facing the south wall. The coworker took approximatel y three steps away from the excavation and then heard a huge gush. He turned to see the excavation and Employee #1 engulfed in flames. The employee was transpor ted to the burn unit at Maricopa Medical Center, suffering from third-degree bur ns over 90 percent of his body. He died on March 5, 1988, as a result of injurie
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 35 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 529
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.