OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14448021
BURN,CLOTHING,ELEC PROTECT EQUIP,ELECTRIC ARC,ELECTRICAL,JACKHAMMER,E C,ELECTRIC SHOCK,ELECTRICAL FAULT,UNDRGRD POWER LINE
Event description
ELECTRIC SHOCK & BURN - CONTACT WITH UNDERGROUND LINE
Investigation abstract
Some employees were installing a new 2.0-meter-diameter sewer line in a trench. 100 millimeters below the electrical duct. The superintendent and foreman got in to the hole and asked two employees how long it was going to take to remove the concrete saddle. One of the employees stated that it would take about 2 hours at this rate, and the supervisors apparently left the hole. With both employees ho lding onto the jackhammer, they brought it down at an angle to the concrete sadd le. Neither employee was using electrical protective equipment. The jackhammer p enetrated the electrical duct and a 13.8-kilovolt underground power line, causin g an electrical fault. The ensuing electric arc threw both employees backward in to the wall of the trench. One of the employees received an electric shock and s ustained severe burns to his arms. The second employee received an electric shoc An existing 0.7-meter-diameter line ran parallel to the new line. A concrete sad k and sustained burns to his left arm and shoulder. The employees were hospitali zed for their injuries. dle had previously been installed over the existing clay tile pipe to protect th e pipe from an electrical duct that ran perpendicular to the sewer line. The con crete electrical duct and the saddle had been poured at the same time, and no di stinctive line was showing between the two. The saddle was about 0.6 meters thic k, 0.6 meters wide, and 0.6 meters long. The employees were using a jackhammer t o chisel the concrete away from the old pipe because the saddle interfered with the new line. The employees drilled some horizontal holes into the saddle about
Victims (2)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 36 M
- Nature of injury
- 10
- Part of body
- 2
- Event type
- 6
- Source
- 15
- Occupation code
- 599
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 10
- Part of body
- 2
- Event type
- 6
- Source
- 15
- Occupation code
- 599
- Human factor
- 4
- 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.