Toolbox Talk Guide: Worker Dies from Electrocution

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Oregon Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (Program) (OR-FACE)
• Description:
  Our safety talk today is about a 27-year-old apprentice electrician who was electrocuted when connecting wires in a junction box in a bathroom ceiling. During a remodel, the electrical subcontractor disconnected lighting circuits at ceiling junction boxes mounted from the hallway outside of the bathroom without tagging all points where circuits could be energized. Wiring was run to adjacent junction boxes: one for general lighting and the other for emergency lighting. The apprentice electrician located the circuit breaker for the emergency lighting on a different floor, shut it off and locked out the circuit breaker. He then reconnected wires to one of the existing junction boxes in the hallway. A witness observed him finishing up connections in the general lighting boxes rather than the emergency lighting junction box. The apprentice mentioned to the witness that he had just been shocked. The witness heard the apprentice electrician fall and then found him collapsed on the restroom floor. It appeared that the apprentice electrician reconnected the wrong wires in the hallway junction box and energized the general lighting circuit. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Construction Industry Electric Injuries Electricity Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident Prevention Construction Workers Electrical Safety Electrical Workers Electrocutions
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  Toolbox Talk
• Publisher:
  Oregon Health & Science University
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Guidance
• Place as Subject:
  Oregon ; OSHA Region 10
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067424
• Citation:
  Portland, OR: Oregon Health & Science University, 2016 Aug; :1-2
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• Performing Organization:
  Public Health Services, Portland, Oregon
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Toolbox talk guide: worker dies from electrocution
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5c870ca9fd9e7ab533310e01fecc8b411025baad78e2c011aa97f906ddd790f4ad0eead1ea1d7494635a7f38e5c115c4e8f56fd4dc8bc3486e2daf258ce86d8e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/229172/cdc_229172_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 508.22 KB ]