Deaths In West Haven VA Steam Blast Were Avoidable: OSHA Report

WEST HAVEN, CT — A lack of hazardous energy control safeguards contributed to the deaths of two men in a hot steam “pressure event” at the West Haven VA Hospital campus last year, according to a report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Two workers at the West Haven veterans’ healthcare facility were killed by hot steam after a metal fixture on a main steam line blew off, according to officials. The workers had just finished making repairs to the steam pipe within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System West Haven campus in November 2020.

A U.S. Department of Labor OSHA inspection “determined that VACT failed to protect employees from struck-by and burn hazards and the agency identified numerous deficiencies in the facility’s lockout/tagout program,” officials wrote in a news release.

Euel Sims Jr., 60, a Navy veteran who was working as a plumbing executive at the VA, and Joseph O'Donnell, 36, a contractor who was working on the steam system, were killed in the incident, police said. O’Donnell worked for Mulvaney Mechanical Inc., a Danbury-based contractor.

“These fatalities could have been prevented if the employer had complied with safety standards that are designed to prevent the uncontrolled release of steam,” OSHA Area Director Steven Biasi said in a statement. “Tragically, these well-known protective measures were not in place and two workers needlessly lost their lives.”

According to the report, OSHA also found the VA failed to:

• Properly shutdown to avoid additional or increased hazard(s) to employees.
• Relieve or render safe all potentially hazardous residual energy such as condensate water.
• Maintain adequate procedures for isolating each steam main branch supplying campus buildings.
• Conduct a periodic inspection of all lockout-tagout procedures to correct any deviations or inadequacies.
• Provide adequate training to supervisory employees.
• Retrain employees when there was a change in their job assignments, or a change in machines, equipment or processes that presented a new hazard.
• Notify affected employees of the application and removal of lockout or tagout devices.
• Inform Mulvaney Mechanical of VACT’s lockout/tagout procedures.
• Ensure each authorized employee affix a personal lockout or tagout device to the group lockout device before working on the machine or equipment.

OSHA issued nine notices of “unsafe and unhealthful” working conditions to the VA. The agency has 15 business days to “comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or appeal the notices,” according to officials. OSHA can’t issue a fine to another federal agency but if the VA was in the private sector, officials said the penalty amount would be $621,218.

OSHA cited Mulvaney Mechanical Inc. for four violations for failing to:

• Develop, document and use lockout/tagout procedures for the control of potentially hazardous energy.
• Adequately train employees on the methods necessary to isolate and control energy.
• Inform VACT of Mulvaney Mechanical’s lockout/tagout procedures.
• Ensure that each authorized employee affixed a personal lockout or tagout device to the group lockout device.

OSHA also proposed penalties of $38,228 to Mulvaney Mechanical Inc., which has 15 business days to comply or contest the findings, according to the news release.