105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14557706

ELEC PROTECT EQUIP,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,ELECTRICAL,ELECTROCUTED,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,UTILITY POLE

Event
ELEC PROTECT EQUIP,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,ELECTRICAL,ELECTROCUTED,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,UTILITY POLE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14557706
Report ID
653510

Event description

ELECTRIC SHOCK - DIRECT CONTACT WITH OVERHEAD LINE

Investigation abstract

A THUNDERSTORM HAD INTERRUPTED POWER TO TWO PHASES OF A THREE-PHASE DISTRIBUTION FEEDER TO A TRANSFORMER. THE TRANSFORMER SUPPLIED POWER TO A MAINTENANCE BUILDI NG FOR A RAIL YARD. THE FUSES ON THE TWO PHASES HAD OPENED. THAT EVENING, A RAIL ROAD EMPLOYEE WAS ASSIGNED TO REPLACE THE FUSE ELEMENTS SO THAT POWER COULD BE R ESTORED. TO DO THIS, HE CLIMBED THE UTILITY POLE WHERE THE FUSES WERE LOCATED. T HE EMPLOYEE HAD NOT DISCONNECTED THE POWER TO THE REMAINING ENERGIZED PHASE COND UCTOR AND CONTACTED IT WITH HIS ELBOW OR FOREARM DURING THE COURSE OF HIS WORK. THE ELECTRIC SHOCK CAUSED HIM TO FALL FROM THE POLE. THE EMPLOYEE DIED OF ELECTR OCUTION.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 41 M

    Nature of injury
    10
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    13
    Source
    15
    Occupation code
    577
    Human factor
    17
    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.