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 #14327951

VOLTAGE BACKFEED,ELECTRICAL,ELECTROCUTED,LOCKOUT,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,TRANSFORMER

Event
VOLTAGE BACKFEED,ELECTRICAL,ELECTROCUTED,LOCKOUT,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,TRANSFORMER
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14327951
Report ID
316100

Event description

ELECTRIC SHOCK - DIRECT CONTACT WITH ENERGIZED PARTS

Investigation abstract

An employee was drawing a fluid sample from a transformer. The employer relied o n the university, which owned the transformer, to deenergize it. The transformer primary was apparently opened. However, the employee's supervisor had not follo wed standard industry practice and company procedures to isolate the transformer ; and the transformer terminals remained energized by backfeed. The employee con tacted live parts on the transformer and was electrocuted. The employer defended the supervisor's actions because of the limited time it normally takes to perfo rm the contracted function.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 21 M

    Nature of injury
    10
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    13
    Source
    15
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    13
    Environmental factor
    13
    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

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.