If you work construction in Minnesota, no one need tell you that your various job sites are full of power tools and other electrical equipment. What you may not realize, however, is that being surrounded by electricity on a day-to-day basis puts you at high risk for receiving electrocution injuries.
Per Construction Connect, work site electrocutions constitute the second highest of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s “Fatal Four” list of construction deaths. In order of frequency, these four rank as follows:
- Falls
- Electrocutions
- Struck-by-object accidents
- Caught-in-between-object accidents
Electrocution causes
It may surprise you to know that only 50-100 milliamperes of electricity can kill a human being. Most 120-volt currents carry somewhere between 15-20 amperes of electricity, obviously far above the lethal limit. Should any part of your body come into contact with such an electrical flow, you face an extremely high risk of receiving an electrocution injury that could take your life.
Given the number of power tools and other potentially dangerous electrical equipment and situations that you come into contact with every day, you face many risks of electrocution from all of the following:
- Faulty electrical equipment and tools
- Frayed or damaged electrical cords
- Ungrounded electrical wires
- Overhead electrical wires with which cranes, lifts, ladders, etc. can come into contact
- Poorly lighted construction sites
Electrocution fatality statistics
Unfortunately, construction workers like you make up 61 percent of all on-the-job electrocution deaths. Males between the ages of 35 and 44 account for 28.3 percent of these. In terms of job category, laborers receive 25 percent of work site fatal electrocutions and electrical workers themselves account for 19 percent. As for specific electrocution causes, 75 percent are from contacting a converter, transformer or power line.
This is general educational information and not intended to provide legal advice.
