OSHA investigators arrived in North Brunswick, NJ on Monday, November 13th 2017 and began an accident investigation at High Grade Beverage, Inc.. A 55 year old had been killed when the employee was electrocuted while changing electrical fixture
Accident Date2017-11-13
Accident DegreeFatality
NarrativeAt 1:00 p.m. on November 13, 2017, Employee #1 was replacing an emergency lighting fixture with a new fixture and accessed the wall-mounted unit via a scissors lift. Employee #1 was found lying on his back in the scissors lift, not breathing and pulseless, at approximately 10 feet in the air with the metallic BX cable carrying the 12 gauge single strand copper wire lying over the guardrail of the lift adjacent to the emergency lights. The black wire coming from BX conduit was live as shown by electricians summoned to the scene following the incident and the wire was carrying 277 Volts as defined by the markings on the Square D panel board. The panel board was located across the warehouse on the West wall and this work was being done not far from the East wall of the facility. When electricians got to the scene, the circuit breaker #36 which powers the emergency lighting circuit was not off and therefore found the black wire live. There was no evidence of gloves used as PPE or other PPE in the area and there were certainly no insulated gloves or even insulated tools seen in the area. Employee #1 was electrocuted and his body showed an entrance wound on this right hand and an exit wound on this left hand. The employee was found in cardiac arrest and was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.