NIOSH Education and Information Division
AUTHOR
ABSTRACT A 52
year old farm worker entered an oxygen limiting silo through
the top opening and was asphyxiated. He was employed on a
privately owned farm with one full time and one part time
worker. The farm had no written safety program with safety
matters being left up to the individual workers. The owner
of the farm and his full time employee were filling an 80
foot high silo with alfalfa silage. In the afternoon the owner
told his worker that he was leaving for a while but would
return later. hen the owner was gone, the victim was to clean
up the silage around the silo being filled and put away the
equipment. The part time employee arrived an hour later, but
could not find anyone around. He went to get help, and on
returning noticed a 10 foot ladder located under the ladder
permanently attached to a silo filled the day before. The
father of the part time employee found the victim in the silo,
lying about 10 feet from the opening. According to the coroner's
report, the victim was probably overcome by nitrous-oxide
(10102439) fumes, fell into the silo, and suffocated as a
result of aspiration of plant material. There was a significant
degree of conflict between the coroner's report and the probable
sequence of events and it was recommended that personnel evaluating
this accident should rethink their conclusions. It was also
recommended that comprehensive policies and procedures be
developed by the employer for confirmed space entry.
SOURCE
AND NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE ID# SOURCE:
Morgantown, West Virginia: National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health; 1987. 5.
NLOM
ID#: No ID#.
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NASD Review: 04/2002
This
document was extracted from the CDC-NIOSH Epidemiology of
Farm Related Injuries: Bibliography With Abstracts, U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers
for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health.
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