Inspection Detail

Inspection: 110131307 - Steuart Petroleum Company

Inspection Information - Office: Jacksonville Area Office

Investigation Summary

Employee #1 was a terminal operator at a bulk fuel marine terminal. His duties involved monitoring an evening/early morning bulk gasoline transfer from a tanker into a 2.3 million gallon storage tank. At 2:00 a.m., approximately one-half hour before the storage tank was scheduled to reach the safe fill level, Employee #1 left the tank farm in a company car, without authorization and for unknown reasons. On returning sometime before, or at, 3:10 a.m., Employee #1 drove the car into the diked area of the storage tank, against company regulations, which possibly ignited the overflowing gasoline. Employee #1's body was found some 6 to 8 feet from the burned-out car, in the direction of a stairway that ran over the pipelines to an adjacent storage tank; this indicated he had attempted to escape from the flaming gasoline. The medical examiner's report indicated Employee #1's cause of death as thermal burns to 100 percent of the body surface with charring, and carbon monoxide toxicity. The toxicological examination listed a blood ethanol level of 0.12 percent.

Keywords: BURN, LONGSHORING, FIRE, STORAGE TANK, INTOXICATED, AUTOMOBILE, SPILL, GASOLINE, CARBON MONOXIDE