1.4 Burns, falls and what happens after the shock
A shock is rarely the end of the event. It is the start of a burn, a fall, a fire, or a slow injury that will not show up until the person is at home. This chapter is about what comes after the current stops — the burns the standards name, the secondary injuries that dominate the reports, and the first minutes, which belong to somebody who has not been electrocuted.
1 Burns are the most common injury
OSHA 3075 opens the subject with a sentence that surprises people who expect cardiac arrest to top the list: "Burns are the most common shock-related injury." It then separates three kinds, and they are worth separating because they come from different events and are treated differently.
| Burn | Cause | What it means on site |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical burn | Current flowing through tissue or bone, generating heat that causes tissue damage | "Among the most serious burns" and requires immediate medical attention. The visible wound is small; the damage is on the path between entry and exit. |
| Arc or flash burn | High temperatures caused by an electric arc or explosion near the body | No contact required. Should be treated promptly. This is the injury that distance, not insulation, prevents. |
| Thermal contact burn | Skin touching hot surfaces of overheated conductors, conduits or other energized equipment — or clothing catching fire, as may occur when an electric arc is produced | The burn that keeps going after the electrical event is over, because the fuel is what the person is wearing. |
A single incident can produce all three. That is why an arc flash injury report reads the way it does: burns from the arc, burns from ignited clothing, and internal damage from current that also passed through the body.
2 The injuries that are not recorded as electrical
Chapter 2 covered involuntary muscle reaction; here is why it distorts the numbers. When a shock throws a person off a ladder, a scaffold or a lift, the reportable injury is a fall. The investigation goes to fall protection. The energized conductor that started the sequence may never be named.
CPWR's November 2022 Data Bulletin shows the scale of what does get counted: from 2011 to 2020 there were 1,501 fatal occupational electrical injuries in the United States, and 49.1% of them — 737 — were in construction, an industry that is a small share of the workforce. On the nonfatal side, 24.4% of the country's electrical injuries were in construction over the same period, and the bulletin's own summary puts the annual burden at "almost 75 fatal and at least 500 nonfatal injuries of this type in construction."
3 Fire, and the arc that starts it
OSHA 3075 lists fires and explosions alongside shock and burns as electrical hazards, and explains the link: "arcs that result from short circuits can cause injury or start a fire." An arc does not need to be large to be an ignition source; it needs to be in the wrong atmosphere. The same paragraph warns that "even low-energy arcs can cause violent explosions in atmospheres that contain flammable gases, vapors, or combustible dusts."
This is where an electrical failure becomes somebody else's emergency. A cord overheating behind stacked material, a loose connection in a temporary panel, a damaged tool arcing next to solvent-soaked rags — the electrical event lasts a fraction of a second and the fire lasts the rest of the shift.
4 The first minute: what to do, in order
Two of the three most dangerous instincts a person has around an electrical accident are to reach for the victim and to check on them before cutting the power. OSHA 3075 gives the order.
- 1Shut off the current immediately. The disconnect, the breaker, the plug — whichever is fastest and safe to reach. Everything else waits for this.
- 2If you cannot cut power, use a nonconductor. Boards, poles or sticks made of wood or another nonconducting material, to safely push or pull the person away from the contact.
- 3Protect yourself while you do it. OSHA's wording: "It's important to act quickly, but remember to protect yourself as well from electrocution or shock." Dry footing, dry hands, nothing conductive in your grip.
- 4Call for emergency medical help, always. Not "if he looks bad". Internal hemorrhage, tissue, nerve and muscle destruction and renal damage are not visible.
- 5Take the equipment out of service and leave the scene alone. The tool, cord or panel that did this is evidence and is still a hazard to the next person.
5 What "he's fine" costs
Two things happen when a minor shock is shrugged off. The person does not get examined, and the equipment stays in the gang box. Both matter, and the second is what turns one incident into two.
The standards are built around this. On construction sites, 29 CFR 1926.404(b)(1)(iii)(C) says equipment found damaged or defective "shall not be used until repaired", and 1926.416(e)(1) is one line: worn or frayed electric cords or cables shall not be used. In general industry, 1910.334(a)(2)(ii) is the same idea: if there is a defect or evidence of damage, the item is removed from service and no employee may use it until repairs and tests necessary to render the equipment safe have been made.
"Render the equipment safe" is a higher bar than "wrap it and carry on". Nothing in either standard contemplates tape.
6 What Part 1 established
Three injuries, not one. Current, not voltage. Path and duration, not toughness. A conductive earth under everyone's boots, and water that turns insulators into conductors. Burns as the most common outcome, falls as the hidden one, and a first minute that starts with the disconnect.
Everything in Parts 2, 3 and 4 is a control aimed at one of those facts. The next part starts with the control that does the most work and gets the least attention: deciding, in advance and in writing, who is allowed to be near what.
7 Reporting it, and why the near miss is the valuable one
An electrical near miss is unusually informative, because the sequence that produces a tingle is the same sequence that produces a fatality — only the current, the path or the duration differed. A worker who felt a buzz off a metal railing has just told you that something upstream has failed and that the fault is looking for a better path. The next person to lean on that railing with wet hands is the test of how much better it can get.
Three things make a report useful rather than decorative. Say what you touched, because the energized part is often not the tool. Say what you were standing on, because that is the other half of the circuit. And say what was plugged in where, because a fault frequently belongs to a different piece of equipment on the same circuit than the one in your hand.
Then the equipment goes out of service. All three standards say it in their own words — 1926.404(b)(1)(iii)(C), 1926.416(e)(1) and 1910.334(a)(2)(ii) — and none of them contemplates a repair made with tape and returned to the box the same afternoon.
- Burns are the most common shock-related injury: electrical burns from current through tissue, arc or flash burns from heat near the body, and thermal contact burns including ignited clothing.
- Many electrical injuries are recorded as falls, because the shock threw the person; the electrical cause can disappear from the report.
- From 2011 to 2020, 49.1% of the 1,501 fatal U.S. electrical injuries were in construction — roughly 75 deaths and at least 500 nonfatal injuries a year (CPWR, November 2022).
- Arcs start fires, and even low-energy arcs cause violent explosions in flammable atmospheres.
- First minute: cut the power, then use a dry nonconductor, protect yourself, call for medical help every time, and take the equipment out of service.
- Damaged equipment does not go back in the box: 1926.404(b)(1)(iii)(C), 1926.416(e)(1) and 1910.334(a)(2)(ii) all say it comes out until it is actually repaired.
Free educational content — not OSHA-authorized training, no certificate or card issued. Follow your employer's program and the standards cited.