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 #633578

BURN,CLOTHING,ELECTRIC ARC,ELECTRICAL,LOCKOUT,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,DISCONNECTING MEANS,MANHOLE

Event
BURN,CLOTHING,ELECTRIC ARC,ELECTRICAL,LOCKOUT,E PTD,ELEC UTILITY WORK,DISCONNECTING MEANS,MANHOLE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
633578
Report ID
215800

Event description

BURN - ELECTRIC ARC FROM DISCONNECTING AN ENERGIZED TAP

Investigation abstract

AN EMPLOYEE AND HIS SUPERVISOR WERE ASSIGNED TO WORK IN A MANHOLE TO CHANGE A 3- RMINE WHETHER THE LINE ON WHICH THEY WERE WORKING WAS ACTUALLY DEENERGIZED. POINT TAP TO A 4-POINT TAP. THE EMPLOYEE AND HIS SUPERVISOR DEENERGIZED AND LOCK ED OUT THE "A" FEEDER AT THE MAIN SWITCHGEAR; THEN THEY PROCEEDED TO THE MANHOLE TO PERFORM THEIR ASSIGNED TASK. THE EMPLOYEE DISCONNECTED ONE ELBOW FROM THE TA P MARKED AS LINE "A". A HUGE ELECTRIC ARC OCCURRED, SEVERELY BURNING THE EMPLOYE E ON HIS HANDS AND ARMS AND BURNING HIS SUPERVISOR ON THE FOREARM. THE EMPLOYEE WAS HOSPITALIZED FOR HIS INJURIES. THE "A" AND "B" LINES IN THE MANHOLE WERE MIS LABELED. THE SUPERVISOR WAS AWARE OF THE MISLABELING BEFORE WORK WAS STARTED; AP PARENTLY, HE FORGOT AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. NO TESTS WERE PERFORMED TO DETE

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 27 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    12
    Event type
    14
    Source
    15
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    4
    Environmental factor
    11
    Task assigned
    2
  2. #2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 44 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    17
    Event type
    14
    Source
    15
    Occupation code
    577
    Human factor
    4
    Environmental factor
    11
    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.