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 #14237838

DIGGER-DERRICK,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,PROTECTIVE GROUNDING,ELECTRICAL,POWER LINE WORKER,ELECTROCUTED,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,UTILITY POLE

Event
DIGGER-DERRICK,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,PROTECTIVE GROUNDING,ELECTRICAL,POWER LINE WORKER,ELECTROCUTED,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,UTILITY POLE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14237838
Report ID
627100

Event description

ELECTRIC SHOCK - CONTACT WITH OVERHEAD LINE THRU TRUCK

Investigation abstract

A LINE CREW WAS ASSIGNED TO REPLACE A UTILITY POLE. THE CREW WAS USING A POLECAT DIGGER/DERRICK TO PERFORM THE WORK. THEY USED THE AUGER ON THE POLECAT TO DRILL THE HOLE FOR THE NEW POLE. THE AUGER WAS STOWED, AND THE BOOM WAS THEN USED TO REMOVE THE NEW POLE FROM THE TRAILER AND POSITION IT NEXT TO THE OLD ONE. THE EM PLOYEES WERE DIRECTED TO REMAIN CLEAR AS THE POLE WAS LOWERED AND THE BOOM RETRA CTED TO GAIN A BETTER ACCESS POSITION. THE BOOM CONTACTED THE LOWEST OF THREE VE RTICALLY MOUNTED OVERHEAD POWER LINES. ONE OF THE EMPLOYEES MADE CONTACT WITH TH E GROUNDED TRUCK AS THE BOOM HIT THE POWER LINE. HE WAS ELECTROCUTED.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 22 M

    Nature of injury
    10
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    13
    Source
    29
    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.