The Art and Poetry of Fatal Facts

The US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration have collected and illustrated a collection of data about fatal industrial accidents. The descriptions read like some kind of demented poetry:

A contract employee
was assigned to sandblast
the inside of a reactor vessel
during turnaround activities at a petrochemical refinery

the contract foreman connected
the employee's supplied air respirator
to a hose containing what he thought was plant air

Instead it was nitrogen

Both hoses were identical except
for markings at the shutoff valve
The sandblaster entered the vessel
descended to the bottom
placed the respirator hood
on his head

and was overcome

Thanks to Evan Funk Davies

Comments

[Mr. Fox]

On this subject:

http://www.archive.org/details/ShakeHan1970

_Shake Hands With Danger_
Industrial safety film produced in the early 1970s by Centron Productions on behalf of Caterpillar Manufacturing. Accidents with heavy machinery combine winningly with a twanging country music score.

Actual lyrics:
"Shake hands with danger
Meet a guy who oughta know
I used to laugh at safety
Now they call me Three-Fingered Joe"

[listener stan]

Accident Summary 18 looks like part of an episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor.