OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221418593

RWE RENEWABLES AMERICAS, LLC

RAYMONDVILLE, TX· 2021-12-07T00:00:00

Event: Abrasion, Blade (Wind Tower), Broken Bone, Cable, Contusion, Engineering Controls, Fracture, Hand, Installing, Lack of Engineering Controls, Nacelle, Repair, Skin, Tear, Tower, Wind Tower, Wind Turbine, Wrist
NAICS: 221115
Inspection type: Referral
Activity number: #345682652
Employer profile: RWE RENEWABLES AMERICAS, LLC
Summary number: 221418593
Report ID: 0626000

Event description

Employee breaks wrist, tears skin when caught in heavy cable

Investigation abstract

At 9:45 a.m. on December 7, 2021, an employee was standing on a on a 360-degree platform dropping a 330-foot long, 10-mm cable from a nacelle during installation. The employee was in the process of dropping the spooled cable down the tower approximately 300 feet while readying a wind turbine blade for repair. The employee was required to drop a total of four cables, each weighing 90 pounds. As the employee was lowering a cable it became tangled. As the employee attempted to untangle the cable, his hand and wrist got caught in the cable. The employee broke his wrist and tore the skin around his wrist and hand, requiring hospitalization.

Victim

#1 Hospitalized Age 36 M

Event type
2

Occupation code
235

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.