40-Year-Old Lineman Technician Electrocuted in North Carolina

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  While attempting to repair a power line, a 40 year old meter technician, working overtime as a lineman technician, was electrocuted when he contacted an energized conductor. He had worked for 20 years as a meter technician, and had recently qualified as a lineman technician. During unplanned outages he worked as a lineman technician to restore electrical service. The day before the accident he had worked 14 hours. On the day of the accident he was working overtime after completion of his regular hours. At the time of the accident the victim was attempting to reattach three conductors to a utility pole. The wires had been knocked down by a falling tree limb. He was in position on the pole and pulling the wires toward him when a previous splice caught the cuff of his left glove and pulled the cuff down, permitting the conductor to contact his forearm near the wrist. His climbing belt held him upside down at the top of the pole. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Recommendations included the following: comprehensive evaluation of the employer's safety program
  
  requirement for employees to request assistance when an assigned task cannot be completed safely alone
  
  review of internal policies concerning assignment of overtime
  
  performance only of tasks for which employees have been adequately trained
  
  adequate supervision to employees that are not journeyman level
  
  removal of hazardous conditions such as tree growth before a serious situation occurs
  
  and routine maintenance of all necessary safety equipment.
  
  
• Content Notes:
  Publication date provided by the authoring office. There is no publication date indicated on the resource.
• Subjects:
  Electric Injuries Electricity Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Electric-power-transmission-lines Electrical-hazards Electrical-shock Electrical-workers FACE-86-50 OSHA Region 4 Safety-practices
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Electrocution
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE8650
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  3 pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00170032
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB87-223244
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 86-50, 1986 Sep ; :1-6
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1986
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  22 - Utilities - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1986/08/26
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:34b91649b7d18c164ce376ce25ee185da4dd04a852d94828ba3530c033e07f2ed07e8bc540b5578fdc813aa10882f85703aa9fa067bed600ee8ee3d1ddef99e1
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/164525/cdc_164525_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 275.62 KB ]