Technician Electrocuted While Performing Maintenance on a Walk-in Cooler in Virginia

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  The case of a heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR) technician who was electrocuted while performing refrigeration maintenance on a restaurant walk in cooler was examined. The victim was a 33-year-old man with an associate degree as a HVACR technician. The victim worked for a small company that performed HVACR maintenance services for commercial and industrial equipment. The company employed 14 workers and had general written safety procedures. After doing some preliminary work, the victim partially connected his vacuum pump lines to the refrigerant system without deenergizing the refrigeration unit (RU). The technician was electrocuted when he touched the surface of the energized RU. Electrical inspections conducted after the accident revealed that one of the phase conductors in the RU starter had its insulation damaged and was arcing to the flexible conduit connector. The connection between the flexible conduit and the conduit connector had loosened and disrupted the grounding continuity between the starter and the RU. The author recommends that electrical equipment should be deenergized before servicing, a mechanical grounding conductor should be available, ground fault protection should be provided, and employers should provide training to prevent against unsafe work practices.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Electric Injuries Electricity Occupational Health Refrigeration Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Electrical-hazards Electrical-shock Electrical-workers FACE-91-32 OSHA Region 3 Refrigeration-equipment Work-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/NIOSHFACE9132
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Virginia ; OSHA Region 3
• 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 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00209881
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB93-114692
• Citation:
  Morgantown, : U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1992
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1991/08/20
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ef244dd2c2734a3d2e40143220868bd62cbd0ad24af30a2a768281224ab6dfa9bf47e57d383af8a2c5971528d4c30a50848618c29b0119241592f3b33d0f73ec
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167542/cdc_167542_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 282.16 KB ]