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 #878488

BURN,CLOTHING,ELECTRIC ARC,E GI IV,ELECTRICAL,ELECTRIC SWITCH,ELECTRICIAN,ELECTRICAL WORK,LOCKOUT,ELECTRICAL FAULT

Event
BURN,CLOTHING,ELECTRIC ARC,E GI IV,ELECTRICAL,ELECTRIC SWITCH,ELECTRICIAN,ELECTRICAL WORK,LOCKOUT,ELECTRICAL FAULT
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
878488
Report ID
352430

Event description

BURN - ELECTRICAL FAULT IN SWITCH

Investigation abstract

An electrician was changing a fuse in a tap switch. He was using a 0.375-inch ra tchet wrench to loosen parts in the switch. As he loosened the bottom retainer b olt on one of the phase conductors, the handle of the ratchet wrench contacted t he brass portion of the fuse for the adjacent phase, causing an electrical fault . The electrician was burned by the ensuing electric arc. He later died of his i njuries.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 60 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    1
    Source
    15
    Occupation code
    575
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    18
    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.