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 #170228357

ELECTRICAL,ELECTRIC SWITCH,POWER LINE WORKER,E PTD,STRUCK BY,ELECTRICAL FAULT,FLYING OBJECT

Event
ELECTRICAL,ELECTRIC SWITCH,POWER LINE WORKER,E PTD,STRUCK BY,ELECTRICAL FAULT,FLYING OBJECT
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
170228357
Report ID
552651

Event description

STRUCK BY FLYING OBJECT

Investigation abstract

A power line crew was placing a recloser into service on a 13.2-kilovolt overhea d power line. A test group at the control panel on the ground was testing the un it by closing, opening, and closing the switch used to energize the pole-mounted recloser. When the switch was first closed to energize the device, the recloser failed, and its 500-pound oil tank was blown off. The oil tank was blown 15 fee t to the north of the pole and fell 50 feet to the ground. It struck one of the power line crew members and killed him.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 27 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    1
    Source
    15
    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.