Vehicle or machinery fire · Poisoning, including poisoning-related asphyxia
At a glance
Federal OSHA recorded a severe workplace injury
at Global Tungsten & Powders Corp., 1 Hawes St., TOWANDA, PENNSYLVANIA 18848
on — Poisoning, including poisoning-related asphyxia, affecting the bODY SYSTEMS.
Final narrative
On October 26, 2016, an employee was hospitalized for smoke inhalation from a fire that ignited in the dust collection system.
An employee's hand was pulled into a pulley while lowering a platform over a piece of equipment. The employee's right middle finger was amputated at the first knuckle.
An employee was visually inspecting the calciner (furnace) tube. When the employee removed the manifold for the calciner tube, tungsten (product) and nitrogen and/or hydrogen caused an explosion inside the calciner tube. Flames shot out of the end of the tube and burned the employee's face and right forearm.
An employee removed the spark plugs and was rotating an engine to evacuate condensate from the cylinders. An unknown source ignited the condensate and natural gas. The employee sustained burns to the back of his hands and upper leg area.
An employee was operating a front-end loader when a hydraulic line broke, causing the front-end loader to catch on fire. The employee jumped from the cab to the ground and sustained fractures to the T-6 vertebra and a heel.
An employee was moving two totes of turpentine. Noticing that one of them was leaking, he stopped his forklift and began to look for the leak. The forklift caught fire, and the employee suffered severe burns. He was hospitalized.
An employee was performing maintenance on a machine when part of an adjacent machine caught fire. The employee extinguished the fire and suffered smoke inhalation.
More severe injuries in this industry (NAICS 331492)
An employee was monitoring a conveyor at the operator station. A piece of metal was fed to a conveyor system and it struck another piece of metal, causing a piece of titanium (1-inch-long and 1/2-inch-wide) to break off and strike the employee in their upper chest below the clavicle. The employee was hospitalized and the embedded piece of metal was surgically removed.
An employee was working by the slag side of a reverb in the furnace department. They returned home after the end of their shift and began feeling muscle cramps, resulting in hospitalization due to dehydration.
An employee had been working in the refinery area of the facility. He then began to feel dizzy and suffered other heat illness symptoms. He was hospitalized for possible heat stress.
On May 14, 2025, an employee was sitting cross-legged and removing a pneumatic rail car vibrator from its bracket to empty the next pocket in the rail car. When the employee went to set the vibrator down, he placed it on a hammer that was sitting in front of him and the vibrator teetered to the side, catching his little finger. The employee sustained an amputated fingertip at the first knuckle.
An employee was opening a railcar compartment using a wrench when the tool broke and the employee slipped and fell to the same level. The employee sustained a fractured lower right leg.
An employee was walking into the motor control center (MCC) room when his right ring finger was caught in the hinge of a doorway. He sustained an open phalanx fracture, which resulted in a partial amputation above the first knuckle.
An employee was changing the spacing on a telehandler's forks. A fork slipped, and the employee's left index finger was caught between it and the mast. The fingertip was medically amputated at the first knuckle.
An employee was pulling down a broken skid with a forklift. When the employee backed up the forklift to get the forks out of the skid he pulled down, he contacted the forks of another parked forklift, fracturing both of his legs. He was hospitalized.
An employee was carrying cups back to the kitchen when her foot got caught on a cart and she fell face-first. During the fall, a piece of glass from a cup cut the inside of her mouth, severing an artery. She also sustained a laceration on her lower lip. The employee was hospitalized.