Electricity illuminates homes and

worksites, energizes machines,

tools, and appliances, and

under threatening skies may appear as

flashes of lightning. It is one of the

Nation’s most important sources of

power. But, contact with electric

current can produce serious injury or

death. The BLS nationwide Census of

Fatal Occupational Injuries counted

347 work-related electrocutions in

1995; the BLS Survey of Occupational

Injuries and Illnesses estimated over

4,700 nonfatal electric shocks and

electric burns in private workplaces

that year, each of those injuries

resulting in time away from work.

Construction trades led all other

occupational groups affected by

deadly and disabling contacts with

electric current, accounting for nearly

half the work-related electrocutions

and just over a fourth of nonfatal

electric shocks and burns reported by

the 1995 BLS census and survey.1

(See chart.) Among construction

trades, electricians and their apprentices, by themselves, were a fifth of

the fatal and nonfatal totals for

electricity-related injuries. Outside

those trades, mechanics, farming jobs,

objects contacted power lines, such

as irrigation pipes lifted by farm

workers, ladders moved by roofers

and their helpers, and truck-mounted

cranes and booms raised and lowered

by truckdrivers and construction

workers. The BLS survey estimated

that 155 workers who survived their

contacts with overhead power lines

were injured seriously enough to lose

a median of 13 days away from work,

four times the typical loss of 3

workdays for workers suffering from

nonfatal electric shocks or burns in

1995.

Contact with wiring, transformers,

or other electrical components, and

contact with the electric current of a

machine, tool, appliance, or light

1

Differences in the occupational distributions of fatal and nonfatal injuries resulting

from contact with electricity reflect, in part,

differences in workers covered by the BLS

census and survey. The survey, for example,

excludes the self-employed and workers on

small farms, groups the BLS census includes.

(See footnotes at bottom of accompanying

table for more on this topic.)

Electricity-related Injuries at Work

U.S. Department of Labor

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Issues

in Labor Statistics U.S. Department of Labor

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Summary 97-10

August 1997

and construction laborers accounted

for a fourth of all electrocutions while

mechanics, service jobs (e.g., janitors,

maids, and kitchen workers), and

machine operators combined were

nearly two-fifths of the total for those

who survived electric shocks and

burns.

Contact with overhead power lines

resulted in more work-related electrocutions (139 out of 347 counted in the

1995 BLS census) than contacts with

any other energized source of power.

(See table.) In some instances,

electricians and other employees

suffered fatal injuries when they

touched “live” power lines. Many

other electrocutions of this type,

however, occurred indirectly when

Other

(28%)

Other

(35%)

Electrocutions

 (347 deaths)

Electric shocks, burns 

(4,744 cases involving

 days away from work)

Electrician

 and

apprentice

 (20%)

 Other

construction

 trade (25%)

 Mechanic,

repairer (10%)

 Farming

job (10%)

Construction

 laborer

7%

Occupations most affected by fatal and lost-worktime injuries

resulting from contact with electric current, 1995

 Service

job (19%)

Electrician

 and

apprentice

 (20%)

Other

constructrade

(7%)

SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor

Machine

operator

(7%)

Mechanic,

repairer

(12%)

tion
fixture were two other ways in which

workers sustained deadly or disabling

injuries. Together, they accounted for

slightly more than two-fifths of all

work-related electrocutions and twothirds of all electricity-related injuries

resulting in days away from work.

Among the fatally injured workers

included in these categories were

several electrocuted while repairing or

installing air conditioning units or

fluorescent lighting, and several others

electrocuted after contacting live wires

while working in crawl spaces under

houses or in attics. The categories

were also cited for some 3,000 lost

worktime cases, such as janitors and

cleaners disabled by electric shocks

while vacuuming and electricians

disabled while installing switches and

changing fuses. Typically, workers

injured while contacting electric

wiring, transformers, or other

electrical components missed 5

workdays, compared with 2 workdays

lost for those coming in contact with

the electric current of machines, tools,

appliances, or light fixtures.

The balance of the electricityrelated injuries resulted from workers

digging near, and hitting underground

or buried power lines; farmers and

other workers struck by lightning; and

a variety of other contacts with

electric current for which the energized source of power was not

documented or was not one of the five

categories specified for use in the BLS

census and survey of work-related

injuries.

Data for this report were derived

from the BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries and its companion

Survey of Occupational Injuries and

Illnesses. For more information on

electricity-related injuries, contact the

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Office of

Safety, Health and Working Conditions, Room 3180, 2 Massachusetts

Avenue, NE, Washington DC 20212.

Telephone: (202) 606-6175.

Information in this report is

available to sensory-impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone:

(202) 606-7828; TDD phone: (202) 606-

5897; TDD message referral phone: 1-

800-326-2577. This material is in the

public domain and, with appropriate

credit, may be reproduced without

permission.

Percent distribution

(n = 347) (n = 4,744)

disabling

 injuries2

Energized

source

of power

Fatal and lost-worktime injuries due to contact with electric current, 1995

 Median3

 workdays

 Fatal Disabling lost from

 injuries1

 injuries2

Total .............................................................. 100 100 3

Machine, tool, appliance, or light fixture .......... 16 32 2

Wiring, transformers, or other

 electrical components .................................... 27 33 5

Overhead power lines...................................... 40 3 13

Underground, buried power lines .................... 1 1 10

Struck by lightning ............................................ 5 4 2

Other or unspecified ........................................ 11 27 -

 1Based on data from the 1995 BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, which covered all workers in

the private and public sectors: Wage and salaried, self-employed, and family members.

 2

Based on data from the 1995 BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, which covered just

wage and salaried workers in private industries, excluding private households and farms with fewer than

11 employees. Disabling injuries are defined as those that result in lost worktime beyond the day of the

incident.

 3

Median workdays lost is the point at which half of the injuries involved more lost workdays and half

involved fewer days. The dash indicates that a median was not computed.