UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

At about 9:40 a.m. on February 4, 2003, Employee #1, a paint batch maker with Pervo Paint Company, was using a pebble mill to mix formulations of paint. This mill was a 1,000-gallon cylinder partially filled with approximately 8-inch pebbles and was loaded from the top from a platform that is 11 ft above the ground. To guide the components into the metal tank, a metal funnel is placed on top of the tank and the components are poured through the funnel. After the Pebble Mill is loaded, the top is closed and the mill is rotated and the pebbles mix and grind the components together. Employee #1 had charged the mill with approximately 120 gallons of acetone and 44 gallons of Xylene. He then poured bags of Chlorez 700, a chlorinated paraffin powder, into the tank. As he was pouring the sixteenth bag into the mill, an explosion occurred inside the tank. Employee #1 was thrown off of his feet and covered with a hot resin that emitted from the tank. The funnel to the tank was blown off as was part of the roof to the platform on which Employee #1 was standing. He was hospitalized first at L.A. County Martin Luther King Hospital, and then transferred to the Burn Unit at L.A. County General Hospital, with second and third degree burns on his face, chest, right arm and right leg, and suffered right eye and respiratory injury. The following causes for the accident were derived from the investigation: The operation was not tested for levels of flammability, the components of the operation were not bonded, and ignition sources were not controlled.