OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14497788

GULF STATES INC

FREEPORT, TX— 1984-06-29T00:00:00

Event: BURN, CLOTHING, ELECTRIC ARC, ELECTRICAL, PPE, E GI VII, ELECTRICAL WORK, TEST EQUIPMENT, ELECTRICAL FAULT
NAICS: 000000
Inspection type: Accident-driven
Activity number: #1611722
Employer profile: GULF STATES INC
Summary number: 14497788
Report ID: 626600

Event description

ELECTRICAL FLASH - FAULT AT SWITCHGEAR

Investigation abstract

AN EMPLOYEE WAS PERFORMING MONTHLY PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE ON SWITCHGEAR EQUIPMEN T. HE WAS TAKING BUS VOLTAGE READINGS FROM A PARTIALLY ENERGIZED SWITCHGEAR (FOR THE MOTOR STARTER OF A 3-PHASE, 480-VOLT COMPRESSOR). WHILE HE WAS TAKING A REA DING, AN ELECTRICAL FLASH OCCURRED, AND THE EMPLOYEE WAS BURNED. THE EMPLOYEE DI ED A WEEK LATER. THE CAUSE OF THE ELECTRICAL FLASH WAS UNKNOWN, BUT IT MAY HAVE BEEN DUE TO A SHORT CIRCUIT CAUSED BY THE TEST EQUIPMENT. THE EMPLOYEE WAS NOT W EARING THE PROPER PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT FOR FLASH.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 50 M

Nature of injury
5

Part of body
4

Event type
14

Source
15

Occupation code
549

Human factor
20

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.