Abstract: Employee #1 was to open a door to ventilate the room that contained the bag filter on top of a silo. The silo had been overfilled with titanium dioxide, which is transferred by a pneumatic conveying system that is operated at a high temperature (180 to 240 degrees Fahrenheit). The overfilling flooded the room with hot titanium dioxide and air, causing several plastic lines containing nitrogen at 125 psi to rupture. The titanium oxide filled the room to a depth of 2 to 3 feet so that the door, which opens inward, had to be cut from its hinges to be opened. Once this was done (about three hours after the nitrogen lines had ruptured), Employee #1 pushed the door in at the top, creating a gap between the door and the door facing. He stepped through the gap into the room, presumably to shut off the nitrogen, but was overcome by the lack of oxygen. A helper with Employee #1 was not able to pull him out of the room alone. By the time help arrived, Employee #1 had died.