OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14236087
OVERHEAD POWER LINE,ELECTRICAL,POWER LINE WORKER,ELECTROCUTED,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,UTILITY POLE,AERIAL LIFT
Event description
Electric Shock - Direct Contact with Overhead Line
Investigation abstract
Two employees were transferring overhead power lines from one utility pole to an ently and came off the crossarm. It then struck the first employee on the should er. He received a fatal electric shock. It was believed that a guy was hit somew here along the line, causing the conductor to shake off the crossarm. Additional ly, the first section of the boom of the aerial lift was fully retracted. In thi s position, the aerial lift was not insulated. This allowed current to flow thro ugh the employee to the boom of the lift and to ground. other. The new pole was 45 feet high with 3-foot-wide crossarms. The existing po les on each side of the new one were 39 feet high with 8-foot-wide crossarms. Th e employees had to bring the conductor on which they were working inward 5 feet and raise it 6 feet. The two employees were working from an insulated aerial lif t. Using hot sticks, they placed the energized power line in a temporary positio n on the crossarm. One of the workers put down his hot stick so that he could se cure the conductor to the crossarm. The other employee, who was still holding th e line with his hot stick, heard a loud thud. The conductor started shaking viol
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 10
- Part of body
- 31
- Event type
- 12
- Source
- 15
- Occupation code
- 577
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- 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.