OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14210595
PURITY GROUP, INC.
SALISBURY, MD—
Event description
EMPLOYEES SUFFER HEADACHES FROM AMMONIA
Investigation abstract
Two employees were working on a food processing line sorting bacon on conveyors. Anhydrous ammonia began to leak from one of the two cooling units used in the r oom to maintain the operating temperature. The two employees left the room due t o the irritating effects of the ammonia. A maintenance employee shut off the flo w of ammonia to the cooler unit. The room was allowed to ventilate and the emplo yees returned to work. The cooling unit was restarted and ammonia again leaked. The employees left the room a second time and both employees experienced headach es and dizziness. Both went to the hospital for treatment, were released, and re turned to work the following day.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 30 F
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 799
- Human factor
- 12
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0170
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 36 F
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 799
- Human factor
- 12
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 0170
- 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.