OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14466049
DISMANTLING,POWER LINE WORKER,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,ELEC UTILITY WORK,FALL,UTILITY POLE
Event description
FALL - ROTTED UTILITY POLE FAILED
Investigation abstract
A utility pole was being retired after about 60 years in service. The company ha level. When the employees released the tension on the pole from the power lines , the pole shifted and broke where it had rotted. Both employees fell to the gro und. One of them died of his injuries. The other employee sustained injuries for which he was hospitalized. d tested the integrity of the pole by sounding it, that is, the pole was struck above ground with a hammer, and the resulting sounds were evaluated. The pole wa s determined to be solid with this method despite the fact that the company's sa fety manual required digging 254 millimeters below ground level and sounding, wi th further checks based on the quality of the initial testing. This rule had bee n routinely violated for several years. Two power line workers climbed this pole to release the overhead power lines it supported. The pole, which was guyed on the side opposite to where the lines were attached, was rotten just below ground
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 23 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 577
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 21 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 11
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 577
- 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.