OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14459119
A J SACKETT & SONS CO
BALTIMORE, MD—
Event description
Employee bruised as drum explodes while using torch
Investigation abstract
At approximately 11:30 a.m. on March 22, 1984, Employee #1, a helper, had been a floor. The fumes, contacting the heat, could have caused the explosion. Employee #1 was dazed when thrown and sustained bruises to his back and legs. He was not trained or told about the procedures for cleaning a drum before burning. The dr ums had all previously contained combustible or flammable material. ssigned by the production manager to make trash cans out of four or five empty 5 5 gallon drums, previously filled with hydraulic oil. He used a propane torch to burn out the tops of the drums. After completing the drums that had contained h ydraulic oil, he proceeded to empty out a 55 gallon drum containing rain water. The foreman stated that, 4 or 5 months ago, the drums contained toluene; this wa s also stated on the top of the drum. Employee #1 proceeded to take the drum int o the steel shop fabrication area and use the propane torch on the drum. The dru m exploded (it did not rupture, it only bulged at the top), throwing him to the
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 23 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 9
- Occupation code
- 867
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Hazardous substance
- 2460
- 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.