General Laborer Electrocuted in North Carolina

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  A 17 year old seasonal general laborer was electrocuted while working at a facility that produced pickles. The victim and another seasonal laborer were filling a wooden tank, 8 feet high and 12 feet in diameter, with pickling brine using a two inch hose. Access to the 1000 tanks at this facility was by above ground wooden platforms, with the tanks rising about 3.5 feet above the floor of the platform. After filling the tank, the worker called to his partner to turn off the hose. He then allowed the hose to fall to the platform where the brine that was still in the hose drained out onto the boards. A power cord which supplied 440 volts of electricity to a pump which was not turned on at the time was also on the platform. The victim stepped back from the tank onto the power cord and was electrocuted. When his coworker, in an attempt to offer aid, stepped onto the brine covered portion of the platform he felt electric current running into his foot and leg. Examination of the cord later showed a faulty splice which allowed two of the leads of the power cord, bare and exposed, to become energized. The 45 percent saline brine saturated portion of the platform was also energized. Recommendations arising from this accident include: making certain that equipment is in safe operating condition
  
  and alerting employees to hazards that they may encounter in the course of their jobs and manners in which these hazards may be controlled.
  
  
• Content Notes:
  Publication date provided by the authoring office. There is no publication date indicated on the resource.
• Subjects:
  Electric Injuries Electricity Food-Processing Industry Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Electrical-hazards Electrical-shock FACE-86-32 Food-processing-industry OSHA Region 4 Safety-practices Seasonal-activity
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Electrocution ; Youth
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE8632
• 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:00170391
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB87-222097
• 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 86-32, 1986 Jul ; :1-5
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1986
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  31-33 - Manufacturing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1986/07/02
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5a1a7f0b53899a97028379ef1e96fca73e3465ca2caa9f6a79c1f1a955456da29340f5fb4b08b7b464c338482b9e4b0e52a79e258b8c0acf5eab9547b6646ddc
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/164587/cdc_164587_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 236.57 KB ]