Healthcare: Electrocution Hazards in the Construction Industry

This report, titled "Healthcare: Electrocution Hazards," examines the significant risks of electrocution within the construction industry. It begins by highlighting that a large percentage of construction workers, especially electricians, are exposed to electrocution due to factors such as faulty equipment, exposed wires, wet conditions, and aerial power lines. The report presents data indicating the high number of accidents, with electrocution being a leading cause of fatalities, often ranking second after falls from heights. It references statistics that underscore the severity of the problem, including the percentage of accidents involving heavy equipment and overhead distribution conductors. The report then outlines effective corrective measures, including hazard identification, proper grounding of wires, using insulated equipment, maintaining safe distances from power lines, and the use of GFCI’s. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of these measures in saving lives and preventing accidents. The document is a valuable resource for understanding and mitigating electrocution risks in construction, offering a comprehensive overview of the problem and practical solutions.

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What are the common causative factors?
Almost 75% of population in the developing nations is employed as construction workers.
Hence, it counts up to a rough estimate of 180 million people working in this industry. However,
it’s shocking to notice the casualties they are prone too. A large proportion of these casualties are
because of Electrocution which can either cause in the death of the individual or several forms of
injury. Human body being a good conductor of electricity is susceptible to electrocution. Few of
these injuries are caused due to negligence by the workers while others are caused due to
occupational hazards (Awolusi, Marks & Hallowell, 2018). Mostly, it’s the electricians working
in the construction sites who are prone to damages by electrocutions. However, even the laborer,
painters; plumbers; etc. are also exposed to such risks. These damages can be caused by the
faulty electrical equipment’s, live electrical wires which are exposed to contact and not properly
grounded, and unorganized power cables. The chance of electrocution gets multiplied when the
workers need to work on wet platforms or they touch any of the equipment with moist hands.
The aerial power lines are another major contributor to Electrocution (Zhao et al. 2015). Most of
the times, they transmit electricity at extremes of Voltages. Any form of contact with them can
result in instant death.
Hence, they need to protect themselves from electrocution.
What does data indicate?
According the data statistics, electricity can kill. On each and every year more than 2000
accidents are being reported at the construction site that involves the electric shocks or the burns.
These data indicates that factor that more than 30% of the injuries reported are fatal. As per the
world statistics regrading the construction site injury, the accidents caused by the electric shocks

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comes second to the list after falling from heights. According to the data gathered from the
World accidents the construction industry through out the world comprises of more than 8% of
the U.S workforces and 44% of the accidents are caused due to the electrocution with the
involvement of the heavy equipment. As per the study by Guo, Yu and Skitmore (2017) the
construction industry comprises of 53% of the occupational hazard related toe electrocutions and
electrocution due to the involvement of the heavy equipment accounts around 51% of the
hazards. As per the statistics more than 90% of the accidents of the power line involves the
overhead distribution conductors.
Figure 1

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Source - (Habibnezhad et al., 2016)
The figure above highlights the rate of the accidental hazards due to electric shocks and other
electric challenges at the construction site through out the word.
What are the effective proven corrective measures?
Every Construction worker needs to remember to follow proper rules and guides while working
with electrical equipment’s. The first and most important step to avoid any hazard is to identify
it. Once, one such hazard is identified it needs to be marked and others educated about the same.
The identification of a hazard alone can save a lot of lives. Every electrical wire needs to be
properly grounded and covered with insulators, so that even if it is accidentally touched by the
workers while they are working, it doesn’t cause such adversities (Luo et al., 2016). Electrical
equipment’s when not in use should be turned off or kept away from a power source. Each of the
equipment’s are manufactured for a particular task, so one needs to remember to use only the
equipment which is fit for the job. It is essential to check every power cable and power cord
before they are installed to avoid any electrical fire from being caused, at the same time; we need
to make sure not to overload any particular power socket which may result in huge power surge.
The aerial power lines are very dangerous and hence it is important to maintain adequate
distance from them. GFCI’s needs to be used wherever needed (Niu et al. 2019). The
Construction workers should use rubber gloves to ensure they do not receive electrical shocks
also, the ladders and metal objects used by them needs to be insulated or provided by a proper
insulated handle to avoid the electrical transmission when touched. If the above measures are
ensued to be taken then we a lot of lives lost can be saved due to electrocution every year.

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Reference
Awolusi, I., Marks, E., & Hallowell, M. (2018). Wearable technology for personalized
construction safety monitoring and trending: Review of applicable devices. Automation
in construction, 85, 96-106.
Guo, H., Yu, Y., & Skitmore, M. (2017). Visualization technology-based construction safety
management: A review. Automation in Construction, 73, 135-144.
Habibnezhad, M., Fardhosseini, S., Vahed, A. M., Esmaeili, B., & Dodd, M. D. (2016). The
relationship between construction workers’ risk perception and eye movement in hazard
identification. In Construction Research Congress 2016(pp. 2984-2994).
Luo, X., Li, H., Huang, T., & Skitmore, M. (2016). Quantifying hazard exposure using real-time
location data of construction workforce and equipment. Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, 142(8), 04016031.
Niu, Y., Lu, W., Xue, F., Liu, D., Chen, K., Fang, D., & Anumba, C. (2019). Towards the “third
wave”: An SCO-enabled occupational health and safety management system for
construction. Safety science, 111, 213-223.
Zhao, D., McCoy, A. P., Kleiner, B. M., & Smith-Jackson, T. L. (2015). Control measures of
electrical hazards: An analysis of construction industry. Safety Science, 77, 143-151.