OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #810465

MCDOWELL ROOFING AND MAINTENANCE COMPANY

DURHAM, NC· 1988-10-20T00:00:00

Event: EXTENSION LADDER, OVERHEAD POWER LINE, ELECTRICAL, ELECTROCUTED, LADDER, METAL LADDER, E GI IB
NAICS: 000000
Inspection type: Accident-driven
Activity number: #18528364
Employer profile: MCDOWELL ROOFING AND MAINTENANCE COMPANY
Summary number: 810465
Report ID: 453710

Event description

ELECTRIC SHOCK - CONTACT WITH OVERHEAD LINE THRU LADDER

Investigation abstract

AN EMPLOYEE WAS REPLACING THE ROOF OF A CHURCH. HE HAD JUST DESCENDED AN EXTENSI ON LADDER. THE EMPLOYER'S NORMAL PRACTICE WAS TO LOWER THE LADDER AND THEN LAY I T ON ITS SIDE. THE EMPLOYEE DID NOT FOLLOW THIS PRACTICE. INSTEAD, HE APPARENTLY RAISED THE LADDER AND PULLED IT BACKWARDS INTO A 7200-VOLT OVERHEAD POWER LINE THAT WAS ABOUT 25 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND. THE EMPLOYEE WAS ELECTROCUTED.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 23 M

Nature of injury
10

Part of body
31

Event type
13

Source
25

Occupation code
595

Human factor
6

Environmental factor
8

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.