105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14200521

ELECTRIC ARC,ELECTRICAL,TREE TRIMMING,EYE,TREE LIMB,ELEC UTILITY WORK,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,ELECTRICAL FAULT,E PTD,TREE

Event
ELECTRIC ARC,ELECTRICAL,TREE TRIMMING,EYE,TREE LIMB,ELEC UTILITY WORK,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,ELECTRICAL FAULT,E PTD,TREE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14200521
Report ID
352430

Event description

EYE FLASH - LOOKED AT ELECTRIC ARC

Investigation abstract

An employee of a temporary employment service was a flagger on a line-clearance her injury. tree-trimming job performed jointly by an electric utility and a tree service fi rm. The employees were trimming trees around a 33-kilovolt overhead power line l ocated 12.2 meters above the ground. The tree-trimming crew was working from a 1 9.8-meter-high HiRanger aerial lift. The crew noticed that a 20-millimeter-diame ter, 1.2-meter-long branch had fallen out of the tree onto the power line. The l ines faulted before the branch could be removed and a massive electric arc ensue d because of a recloser malfunction. The flagger, who was looking at the branch when the fault occurred, sustained an eye flash injury. She was hospitalized for

Victims (3)

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 39 F

    Nature of injury
    19
    Part of body
    8
    Event type
    14
    Source
    15
    Occupation code
    869
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    12
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0
  3. #982 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.