73-Year-Old Self-Employed Pump Service Contractor Dies in Well in Maryland: FACE 87-59

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  A self employed water pump service contractor died after falling to the bottom of a 50 foot deep water well at a private residence where he was investigating a problem with the water system. Having located no problems in the house itself, the victim went to check the adjacent well, 50 feet deep, 2 feet in diameter. It was cased with concrete rings to the bottom. The man began to descend a chain ladder into the well to check the piping leading from the well to the house and either slipped or was overcome by an oxygen deficient atmosphere, falling down the shaft. Responding to the home owner's emergency call, a fireman was lowered via a rope into the well, but was overcome part way down and transported to a local hospital. A second fireman was lowered with a self contained breathing apparatus but could get no pulse or response from the victim. The victim was finally removed 4 hours after he fell into the well. No tests were made on the atmosphere in the well. The cause of death was unknown at the time of this report. The victim owned his own company, of which he was the only employee. No written safety program on confined spaces entry was in place. It is recommended that a trained standby person be used whenever confined space entry is required, that this person visually monitor the work of the person inside, and that comprehensive policies and procedures for confined space entry be developed.
• Content Notes:
  Publication date provided by the authoring office. There is no publication date indicated on the resource.
• Subjects:
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Confined Spaces
  • Fatal Outcome
  • Occupational Health
  • Safety
• Keywords:
  • OSHA Region 3
  • FACE-87-59
  • Confined-spaces
  • Accident-analysis
  • Accident-prevention
  • Safety-practices
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  All ; Confined Space
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE8759
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  3 pdf pages
• Volume:
  1987
• Issue:
  59
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00177532
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB88-189402
• Citation:
  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 87-59, 1987 Aug ; :1-4
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1987
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  21 - Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction - (NAICS 2022)
• Start Date:
  1987/06/27
• Resource Number:
  FACE 87-59
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/164483/cdc_164483_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 234.19 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f5a8d0968acea1d3bd8393bec1ce1fe13645d1e54952032fe33d87ec92afcbfc0e1c692e951dcb75109e73ea31c2ed09b572eef09bc4be0620c5f64b4be2e4f1