OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14393060

LOUISIANA SWABBING SERVICE INC

BREAUX BRIDGE, LA— 1985-05-13T00:00:00

Event: STATIC ELECTRICITY, DRUM, FIRE, EXPLOSION, SMOKING, GASOLINE
NAICS: 000000
Inspection type: Accident-driven
Activity number: #1425883
Employer profile: LOUISIANA SWABBING SERVICE INC
Summary number: 14393060
Report ID: 625700

Event description

DIESEL FUEL DRUM EXPLODED, KILLING EMPLOYEE

Investigation abstract

EMPLOYEE #1 WAS STANDING IN THE BED OF A PICK-UP TRUCK, ATTEMPING TO FILL TWO 55 -GALLON DRUMS WITH DIESEL FUEL FROM A BULK STORAGE TANK. THE DRUM BEING FILLED E XPLODED, BLOWING OUT BOTH ENDS OF THE DRUM AND IGNITING THE VEHICLE AND EMPLOYEE #1. LAB RESULTS CONCLUDED THAT THE DIESEL FUEL WAS CONTAMINATED WITH GASOLINE. THE GASOLINE COULD HAVE BEEN IGNITED BY STATIC ELECTRICITY; OR EMPLOYEE #1 COULD HAVE LIT A CIGARETTE.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 27 M

Nature of injury
21

Part of body
19

Event type
14

Source
16

Occupation code
999

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
10

Hazardous substance
1340

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.