OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14451306
STAUFFER CHEMICAL COMPANY
HENDERSON, NV—
Event description
Five hospitalized after possible bis-chloromethyl ether leak
Investigation abstract
Employees #1 through #5 were authorized workers involved in the clean-up and dec the facility. The regulated area and entry requirements were established as per 1910 1008 ontamination of a possible bis-chloromethyl ether (bcme) release. The failure of a pipe flange from a containment vessel to a reservoir resulted in the discharg e of several hundred gallons of pesticide intermediate contaminated with bcme. T he amount of bcme contamination varied between batches, but analytical results o f 1000 ppm bcm1,000 ppm bcme triggered implementation of 1910 1008 requirements. Employees #1 through #5 were hospitalized and underwent a full battery of speci fied medical tests. All had been trained in emergency methods for bcme decontami nation and cleanup. According to DOSH, this was the first event of this type at
Victims (5)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 32 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2630
- Task assigned
- 2
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 51 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2630
- Task assigned
- 2
-
#3 Hospitalized Age 26 F
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2630
- Task assigned
- 2
-
#4 Hospitalized Age 34 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2630
- Task assigned
- 2
-
#5 Hospitalized Age 37 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2630
- 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.