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 #608505

UNGUARDED FL OPENING,GRATING,WALKING SURFACE,FALL,FALL PROTECTION,INATTENTION

Event
UNGUARDED FL OPENING,GRATING,WALKING SURFACE,FALL,FALL PROTECTION,INATTENTION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
608505
Report ID
418100

Event description

FALL THROUGH UNGUARDED FLOOR OPENING

Investigation abstract

An apprentice electrician at an electric utility was looking for a faulty lighti his injuries. ng fixture that he and a coworker had been assigned to repair. He entered an are a that had been barricaded with tape and rope, where two mechanics were replacin g sections of grating. The existing grating had been temporarily removed. There was an 864-millimeter by 711-millimeter opening where the last section of gratin g was to be placed. After speaking briefly with the mechanics, the apprentice cr ossed over the opening to ask another person about the lighting. While talking t o this person, the apprentice had his back to the opening. Afterwards, he turned and stepped into the opening, falling 14 meters feet to the ground. He died of

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 31 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    5
    Source
    8
    Occupation code
    576
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    13
    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.