Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025
105,991Records 71,450Employers 85,836Hospitalizations 27,959Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-11-30

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14400337

TEXAS POWER & LIGHT A DIV OF TEXAS UTILITIES

Event
BOOM TRUCK, POWER LINE WORKER, ELEC UTILITY WORK, MECH MAT HANDLING, SLING, LOST CONTROL, UTILITY POLE
NAICS
000000
Inspection type
Accident-driven
Activity number
#100311877
Employer profile
TEXAS POWER & LIGHT A DIV OF TEXAS UTILITIES
Summary number
14400337
Report ID
626300

Event description

STRUCK BY FALLING UTILITY POLE

Investigation abstract

Two power line workers were removing a 13.7-meter-tall (45-foot-tall) utility po atch it!" The second employee jumped form the vehicle. When he turned around, he saw that the pole had come loose from the sling and had struck the first employ ee, who was lying on ground. The first employee died of his injuries. le. One of the employees dug the earth from around the base of the pole. Next, h e wrapped a sling around the pole and connected the sling to the hook on the end of the load line of a boom truck. The second employee tightened the load line a s the first employee took the shovel handle and pushed the sling to a position a bout 3.7 meters (12 feet) from the ground. The first employee then cut the pole with a chain saw. The second employee rotated the boom while the first guided th e butt of the pole. The pole, which was top heavy, began to rotate. The first em ployee placed his weight on the but area of the pole and said to his coworker "W

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 53 M

    Nature of injury
    6
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    27
    Occupation code
    555
    Human factor
    4
    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.