Company Address: Raleigh, Mississippi
Employees’ Names: Cody Scarborough (18); Nicholas Pound (23); George Ben Jefferson (53)
EMP #:
Phone:
Gender: All male
What Happened?
According to the report of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), in the morning of June 5, 2006, an explosion occurred at the Partridge-Raleigh oilfield where three contractors (names mentioned above) from Stringer's Oilfield Services died and one was seriously injured. The contract workers were in the process of connecting a pipe from a production tank to a storage tank which previously (and one currently) held flammable materials. Unsafe practices which did not adhere to the standards proposed by the OSHA contributed to the accident and fatalities that ensued. In addition, the failure of the comply with the guidelines for the safe performance of hot work contributed to the accident and fatalities that ensued.
The unsafe practices included the following: (1) the use of unsafe technique to test the presence of hydrocarbons in the production tank; (2) failure to use flammable gas detector devise to test for dangerous vapor within the environment; (3) failure to cap the open pipe; and (4) the use of a makeshift platform through placement of the ladder where two of the contract workers served to secure it.
As such, the regulatory agencies issued recommendations which include: (1) issuance of written hot work permits; (2) ensure that the work to be done in the oil fields is performed only by trained personnel with knowledge on safety and hazards in the work setting; (3) isolation of the work area through placements of caps, blinds, or needed safety devices; and (4) the use of the gas detector to effectively capture and test presence of flammable materials in the work area.
