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

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221631195

SUMTER UTILITIES INC.

Event
Bucket Truck, Concrete Pole, Digger/Derrick, Electric Arc Flash, Electrocuted, Installing, Overhead Power Line, Power Line Worker, Removing, Utility Pole
NAICS
221122
Inspection type
Federal Agency
Activity number
#347207417
Employer profile
SUMTER UTILITIES INC.
Summary number
221631195
Report ID
0418200
Project type
B
Construction end-use
O

Event description

Employee is killed by electrocution

Investigation abstract

On January 11, 2024, after completing a safety brief, a four-person crew bucket truck. The three 115 kv transmission power lines were not energized while performing these operations. At approximately 9:30 a.m., after Coworker #1 had the concrete utility pole cleared off the ground, he started to lower the pole into the ground. The boom assembly rotated towards the right, allowing the top end of the utility pole to make contact with an adjacent 46 kv overhead power line, creating an arc flash. Employee #1 was in contact with the utility pole, which had the grounding cable still attached, suffering an electrocution. Employee #1 was killed. proceeded the operations of removing and installing the overhead power lines onto a newly installed 95-foot long concrete utility pole. The crew consisted of a foreman, Employee #1 (lineman), Coworker #1 (heavy equipment operator), Coworker #2 (lineman), and Coworker #3 (operator). Coworker #1 was operating a derrick digger to remove the second 65-foot long concrete pole. The other 65-foot long concrete pole had been removed from the ground the day prior. Employee #1 was acting as the Groundman, directing Coworker #1. Coworkers #2 and #3 were installing the overhead power lines, utilizing an electrical utility

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 59 M

    Event type
    13
    Occupation code
    7015

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.