OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14456370
UTEX OIL CO
ALTAMONT, UT—
Event description
Employee Burned in Methane Gas Explosion
Investigation abstract
One of two jack screws on the suction valve of a unit worked loose. Because it w as under 500 pounds per square inch of pressure, the valve eventually blew out o f position. This left a 1-inch hole through which methane gas could leak into th e refrigeration and compressor building. The gas was apparently ignited by the h ot exhaust manifold (between 500 and 1200 degrees) on the unit's blower engine. The exhaust manifold was located 6 feet from the gas leak. All building operatio ns could be shut down from the outside. However, Employee # 1 entered the buildi ng for an unknown reason. He received multiple burns and had to be hospitalized.
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 35 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 11
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 699
- Human factor
- 10
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 1640
- 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.