OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #996736
UNION TANK CAR COMPANY
EAST CHICAGO, IN·
Event description
Employee killed in fall from railroad tank car
Investigation abstract
At approximately 11:15 p.m. on August 3, 1988, Employee #1 was completing a weld #1 was treated and taken to St. Catherine's Hospital, East Chicago, IN, with a fractured skull and hemorrhaging of the brain. He was pronounced dead at 12:10 p .m. on August 4, 1988. The cause of death was cerebellar tonsillar herniation. T he probable cause of the accident was a fall from an elevated work surface. on the sill section, which was part of the coupler assembly, of railroad tank c ar #AE6560-26. The car was positioned in a north/south longitude direction in ar ea #364 at the northwest end of the building. Several witnesses said that Employ ee #1 was standing on the upper sill section while stepping across the bolster s ection, which is located between the sills. The sill section measures approximat ely 12 in. wide by 7 ft long by 3/8 in. thick with an approximately 3 in. high l ip on the open side. Employee #1 lost his footing or balance and fell approximat ely 9 ft backward, striking his head against the smooth concrete floor. Employee
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 33 M
- Nature of injury
- 6
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 42
- Occupation code
- 783
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 11
- 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.