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 #14232011

CHEST,POWER LINE WORKER,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,GUY,ELEC UTILITY WORK,FALL,TRANSMISSION TOWER

Event
CHEST,POWER LINE WORKER,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,GUY,ELEC UTILITY WORK,FALL,TRANSMISSION TOWER
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14232011
Report ID
316400

Event description

FALL - TRANSMISSION TOWER COLLAPSE

Investigation abstract

A power line crew was replacing old guys on an existing steel tower. The five-me mber crew had installed the new guys. One of the power line workers on the crew was at the 12.2-meter-high level on the tower, where the guys were attached. Usi ng bolt cutters, he started to cut the old guys from the tower. He cut three of the old guys and then cut a new one on the uphill side of the tower. This caused the tower to fall. The power line worker, who was tied off with a body belt and lanyard, went down with the tower and struck his chest on the tower when it hit the ground. He died of his injuries.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 26 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    5
    Source
    8
    Occupation code
    577
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    6
    Task assigned
    1

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.