Abstract: Employee #1 was operating a pilot plant using high pressure to extract taxol from yew needles. The process uses carbon dioxide and methanol in a supercritical fluid phase. Employee #1 was standing on a ladder over the reactor while taking off the reactor cap. Because the system was still pressurized, the cap blew off and struck Employee #1, throwing him more than 10 feet. He sustained trauma to the head, chest, and legs, as well as injuries from having been thrown off the ladder, and died. Employee #1 had worked for the company, which does research and development for the biotech industry, for less than one month and was to graduate from college in six months. The pilot plant had been designed by company engineers and was approaching a production phase.