Frank Pokrwyka, Pgh. AIHA Treasurer They say you never forget your first time and that must be true for many important things in life. As I write this almost 43 years later I still remember getting that phone call early one Sunday morning from a guard at the blast furnace where I worked for less than a year. I had the weekend call for the EH&S Department and the guard was asking me if being exposed to methanol vapors for a brief time posed any hazard. I told him that as long as the workers were not experiencing any dizziness or nausea, they would be fine after getting some fresh air. As I hung up the phone something in my gut didn’t seem right and I decided to go to the plant.
Walking into the mill from the parking lot, I ran into the Plant’s Assistant General Manager who asked what I was doing there. I told him I got a call from the guard about workers being exposed to methanol vapors and decided to investigate further. I soon learned that phone call was a big-time understatement. Actually, a lab worker from the water quality lab was on his way to the nearby hospital’s burn unit. The workers reportedly exposed to the vapors were other lab personnel who were able to catch the worker (a burning torch) running down the hall and douse the flames with their coats. They were mostly uninjured, suffering only minor burns to the hands.
Walking into the mill from the parking lot, I ran into the Plant’s Assistant General Manager who asked what I was doing there. I told him I got a call from the guard about workers being exposed to methanol vapors and decided to investigate further. I soon learned that phone call was a big-time understatement. Actually, a lab worker from the water quality lab was on his way to the nearby hospital’s burn unit. The workers reportedly exposed to the vapors were other lab personnel who were able to catch the worker (a burning torch) running down the hall and douse the flames with their coats. They were mostly uninjured, suffering only minor burns to the hands.
During the investigation later that day we learned the lab worker was performing a common water quality check on boiler water involving 100 ml of methanol. The methanol was stored in a five-gallon plastic carboy dispenser stored on the edge of the lab bench. Because the carboy dispenser valve had a tendency to drip, a trash can, filled with paper towels was positioned below to catch and evaporate the leaking methanol. The lab was a no smoking area, and it was suspected that a person seeing the signs tossed his cigarette into the trash can. A short while later, the lab worker saw flames from the trash can licking at the bottom of the 5-gallon methanol container. Realizing this was a problem, he tried sliding the containers out of the flames but when he did this the sloshing methanol burst the heat softened plastic resulting in a huge fireball that engulfed the worker. His clothing aflame, and skin burning, the worker ran down the hallway screaming when two other workers tackled him and put out the flame. The lab worker was transported to the hospital but despite burn treatments he passed away 3 days later.
In closing, our management at the plant spent days discussing ways to make this lab operation safer obviously getting rid
of the carboys and tightening the no smoking policy. Word also spread to other blast furnace operations across the company. Additionally, sharing details of fatalities and lost time injuries throughout the steel industry was what we did back then and hopefully that practice continues today. This gentleman was my first but not my last fatality or lost time injury investigation but one I’ll never forget. My one regret after all these years was that I cannot remember his name.
In closing, our management at the plant spent days discussing ways to make this lab operation safer obviously getting rid
of the carboys and tightening the no smoking policy. Word also spread to other blast furnace operations across the company. Additionally, sharing details of fatalities and lost time injuries throughout the steel industry was what we did back then and hopefully that practice continues today. This gentleman was my first but not my last fatality or lost time injury investigation but one I’ll never forget. My one regret after all these years was that I cannot remember his name.