A 49-year-old contract worker died when he entered a chemical storage tank to clean and inspect the tank. The victim was assigned to conduct scheduled inspections and maintenance at a chemical tank farm. Before arriving on-site, the victim received e-mails from the chemical company manager outlining the projects that he was to complete. On his first day on site, the plant manager verbally trained the victim, after which the two of them went to lunch, and then the victim left the site. The following day the victim signed in on-site at eight am. A material handler for the chemical company worked around the tank adjacent to the victim and spoke with him twice that morning. He saw the victim last mid-morning, walking back from his rental car toward the tank he was working on. After lunch, the material handler looked for the victim but could not find him. In mid-afternoon, a warehouse leadman asked if anyone had seen the victim, and no one had. He then went to check the tanks and found the victim collapsed inside one of the tanks. EMS was called, but the victim had succumbed to what the medical examiner reported as “acute heptane and toluene toxicity.”
PRCS Fatality – acute heptane and toluene toxicity (TN-OSHA Fatality II #4 2010)
