OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14491187
HILLS BROS COFFEE INC
EDGEWATER, NJ—
Event description
Six employees hospitalized for smoke inhalation
Investigation abstract
Green coffee beans were being fed onto a conveyor belt leading through a 600 deg rees F oven roaster. Employees #1 through #6, process operators and supervisors, were in the area to monitor the fully automatic operation by visually inspectin g a control board, the mechanical entry of the coffee beans into the oven, and t he discharge of the beans from the oven. They inhaled smoke when the conveyor mo tor drive coupling broke down and the coffee in the roaster started to burn. Alt hough all visual and aural alarms functioned, Employees #1 through #6 did not le ave the area promptly. They were taken to the hospital, where they were examined and released following treatment.
Victims (6)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 28 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 58 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Hospitalized Age 42 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#4 Hospitalized Age 47 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#5 Hospitalized Age 44 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#6 Hospitalized Age 48 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 7
- 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.