104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14415145

RIGGING,ELEC UTILITY WORK,STRUCK BY,SLING,FALLING OBJECT,UTILITY POLE

Event
RIGGING,ELEC UTILITY WORK,STRUCK BY,SLING,FALLING OBJECT,UTILITY POLE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14415145
Report ID
728500

Event description

UTILITY POLE STRUCK BACK OF EMPLOYEE

Investigation abstract

AN EMPLOYEE WAS ASSIGNED TO A CREW REMOVING UTILITY POLES FOR A DEMOLITION CONTR ACTOR. THE FIRST POLE OF THE DAY WAS HOISTED FROM THE GROUND BY A DERRICK TRUCK. THE POLE, WHICH WAS 35 FEET LONG, WAS TOP HEAVY AS IT CAME OUT, CAUSING IT TO T URN OVER. AS THE POLE TOP HIT THE PAVEMENT, THE SLING AND HOOK HOLDING THE POLE UNFASTENED. THE ENTIRE POLE THEN FELL, STRIKING THE EMPLOYEE ON THE LEFT SIDE OF HIS BACK WITH SUFFICIENT FORCE TO RUPTURE HIS ABDOMINAL WALL AND CAUSE EJECTION OF THE INTERNAL ORGANS. THE EMPLOYEE DIED OF HIS INJURIES.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 52 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    1
    Source
    27
    Occupation code
    999
    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.