Rescue effort results in fatality for a wire manufacturing plant worker in Illinois, June 7, 1985.
Authors
NIOSH
Source
Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 85-27, 1985 Jun; :1-7
On June 7, 1985, a 43 year old production foreman of a wire processing company was summoned to aid a maintenance crewman, who had collapsed at the bottom of an open top clarifying tank. The facility employed over 100 persons. The maintenance crewman, an 18 year old summer employee, was the son of the foreman. Sludge from the bottom of the tank was being removed by scooping it into buckets and hoisting the buckets out of the tank. The two men alternated working in the tank because of the intense odor in the tank made them feel high. A window fan was used to provide ventilation inside the tank. On the second day of work inside the tank, the crewman outside the tank saw the other crewman staggering around in the tank and then collapse. Several workers, including the production foreman, attempted to rescue the crewman. Rescue squad members in chemical protective suits and self contained breathing apparatus removed the crewman, who was able to aid in getting himself out of the tank. The production foreman was unconscious when removed from the tank, and was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital. Recommendations include evaluation of the method of cleaning out the clarifier tank, development of comprehensive policies and procedures for confined space entry and emergency exit, training those responsible for emergency rescue in confined space rescue methods, monitoring hazardous exposure conditions, and clearly identifying all chemicals in use or in storage.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.