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 #778332

ELEC PROTECT EQUIP,EXTENSION LADDER,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,ELECTRICAL,POWER LINE WORKER,ELECTROCUTED,LADDER,E PTD,METAL LADDER,ELEC UTILITY WORK

Event
ELEC PROTECT EQUIP,EXTENSION LADDER,OVERHEAD POWER LINE,ELECTRICAL,POWER LINE WORKER,ELECTROCUTED,LADDER,E PTD,METAL LADDER,ELEC UTILITY WORK
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
778332
Report ID
953220

Event description

ELECTRIC SHOCK - CONTACT WITH OVERHEAD LINE

Investigation abstract

A supervisor asked a power line worker to help him pull up a sagging 120-volt ov erhead power line at a construction site. The power line worker, who had 10 year s of experience, borrowed a 4.9-meter-long aluminum extension ladder to reach to p of a 6.4-meter-tall utility pole to attach the sagging power line. While he wa s pulling the conductors, the ladder shifted, pinching a wire nut between the si de rail of the ladder and the pole. The conductor contacted the ladder and energ ized it. The employee, who was touching the aluminum ground wire, was electrocut ed. He also fell about 3.7 meters into his supervisor's arms. Another person adm inistered cardiopulmonary resuscitation to no avail.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 34 M

    Nature of injury
    10
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    13
    Source
    15
    Occupation code
    577
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    2
    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.