Last week, I was involved in a serious explosion at my shop. I was reaching for a jack stand on the top shelf at my shop. When doing so, I accidently hit a small tank of Benzomatic MAPP Gas. The small tank fell to the ground and caused a flash explosion. This explosion landed me in the hospital for three days. I was treated for second degree burns on my forehead, nose, lips, right cheek, right ear, neck, and my wrists. Basically, I was burned everywhere that wasn't covered by clothing. This gas explosion was so strong that it managed to knock the sheetmetal off of my garage door. This 4'x8' piece of sheetmetal was held in by 1" long self tapping screws every 10 inches. There was at least 40 screws in each sheet and yet it still managed to blow it off away from the shop approximately 12 feet. It also broke one of the light bulbs in my shop.

Here is my warning so it doesn't happen to you:

IF YOU OWN ANY SMALL TORCH, REMOVE THE TORCH AFTER EVERY USE.

these torches make the gas cannister top heavy, causing it to fall over easy. If the torch hits the ground, it will cause the tank to crack where the torch screws onto the tank. Luckily, my tank was almost empty. I firmly believe that if the tank was new, I wouldn't be here now. I was at a shop picking up some parts, and I noticed that a guy had the same tank of MAPP gas sitting straight up on his work bench with the torch on. I told him what happened to me and that he should remove the torch and sit the tank on it's side. He simply replied, "Oh well." Please, learn from my mistake... REMOVE YOUR TORCH AFTER EVERY USE.

below are some pictures of my face and wrists 4 days after it happened. Perhaps these can give you a perspective on what happened.

Burn picture 1

Burn picture 2

Burn picture 3

 

I really hope your Ok in the end. That looks really bad, hang in there.

 

Holy crap!

Glad you're okay, and I'm glad I keep mine in a case dismantled.

I didn't realize the power those buggars have. Thanks for this thread!

(Sorry about your luck)

 

holy cow, you are a lucky man to be alive... thanks for the info..

 

no problem, i just want to inform people... you wouldn't believe how many people, including me, have their torch installed on the tank when they're not using it. While the directions say to remove the torch, i think that the design of this tank is piss poor. This tank and torch should be designed to withstand a fall, even if the torch is installed.

 

ah.... scary... i normally leave the torch connected to my propane cylinder and leave it in my toolbag, on my passenger floorboard.... its propane and not mapp, but im not chancing that now.....

 

Wow, never would have though such a small tank could have such explosive power. Hope you recover quickly.

 

I have a torch on a MAPP tank and it has fallen several times to the point that the tank is dented and the threaded end of the tank is pushed in. I guess i got lucky that nothing major has happened. I hope you get better real soon and thanks for the info.

 

Thank God you are ok!! Hope you recover soon!

 

Sorry to hear that happened to you.

 

Hope you get better. Damn i got like 6 of those burnZomatic mapp gas blow torches in my garage. HOT DIGGITY!! That crap smells like doodoo when you use it. I get all dizzy when burning something with it.

 

AHH! dang just now looked at the pictures... thats nasty, glad you are still alive!

 

Glad you are ok and thanks for the warning. I will definatly not say"oh well", and the mechanic who did is pretty stupid for saying that.
Thanks and get well soon.

 

Learnt this one long ago from an incident at work.

The railcars we build require certain parts to be of cast steel, and in order to weld them proprly to the plate steel body, the casting needs to be pre-heated. We use what we call a 'Rosebud' which is basicly just a giant Oxy-Fuel blowtorch that, when properly tuned, is shooting a tight flame about 2 1/2- 3 feet long.

We also use various shapes and sizes of plywood boxes for standing and sitting on to reach oddball locations. Origionally, these boxes had 'hand slots' cut in one side big enough to slip a (welding gauntlet) gloved hand into to pick it up.

Well, this one fellow decided this was the perfect place to 'hang' his rosebud when not in use. What he didn't know (or didn't care about) was that the valves on his RB didn't properly seal when turned off, and he was slowly filling the box ( about 18x18x36 ) with a MIXTURE of MAPP and PURE OXYGEN.
Eventually a spark from his welding found it's way inside.

The ONLY reason he didn't lose one of his legs was that he was wearing FULL leather pants ( not just chaps ) but that still didnt prevent thousands of splinters getting driven into his flesh. The explosion threw wood splinters all OVER the bay. They were picking up wood from over 100' away.

 

Thank you for posting this. I work in a hospital that has a regional burn center. We see the results of burn trauma all the time. Like your "oh well" fellow, many people just don't realize how dangerous combustibles can be. Or how unpleasant and potentially devastating burns can be. Thank goodness you are going to be OK. You are in fact "lucky". Good luck in your recovery and again thank you for posting this. Everyone please take this example seriously. Perhaps the mods could sticky this for awhile.

Mike

 

yea thank the lord that you're ok. And hope you make a full recovery soon. Mike needs a friend still haha

 

Wow I guess now I know why my shop is so strict about stuff like that. We have to lock our oxy/acetylene tanks up before closing down, not a lot of shops do that.

 

Holy smokes Brenton!....judging by pic#3, that's gotta hurt a little during the healing process. Count your blessings....as you know, when you work in a fab shop, you have a greater chance of all kinds of things that can happen to you.....as compared to the guy that sits at an office desk.

 

Dang B! That's nastier than I thought it would be! Call me when you're heading back to the shop!

 

WOAH!!!

I am glad this is a safety precaution where I work.
I thought it was a useless point, but now I see differently.