OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14445043
OVERHEAD POWER LINE,GUY,ELEC UTILITY WORK,FALL,UTILITY POLE
Event description
FALL - GUY ANCHOR AND UTILITY POLE FAILURE
Investigation abstract
A LINEWORKER WAS DEADENDING THE LAST PHASE OF A THREE-PHASE OVERHEAD POWER LINE. THE LINE WAS 30 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, NEAR THE TOP OF A CLASS 5 WOODEN UTILITY POLE. THE ANCHOR THAT WAS HOLDING THE POLE CAME OUT OF THE GROUND, AND THE RESU LTING ADDITIONAL STRESS ON THE POLE CAUSED IT TO BREAK AT A LEVEL OF 7 FEET, 8 I NCHES ABOVE THE GROUND. THE EMPLOYEE, WHO WAS WORKING FROM THE POLE WITH HIS SAF ETY BELT AND STRAP ATTACHED, FELL TO THE GROUND WITH THE TOP OF THE POLE. THE AR M OF THE POLE OF THE POLE STRUCK THE EMPLOYEE IN THE HEAD, CAUSING MULTIPLE SKUL L FRACTURES AND THE DEATH OF THE EMPLOYEE.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 28 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 577
- 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.