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With the Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) website not being updated during the federal government shutdown, CSB Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso used a recent news conference in Washington, D.C. to warn of the shutdown’s affect on his agency.

These tragic electrocutions, all investigated by NIOSH, show just how widespread and unexpected electrical dangers can be, sometimes involving the most ordinary types of work:

Almost all American workers are exposed to electrical energy at sometime during their work day, and the same electrical hazards can affect workers in different industries. Based on the analysis of these cases, NIOSH identified five case scenarios that describe the incidents resulting in 244 fatalities:

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You would think if workers knew how little electricity it takes to kill someone, they would be more cautious around energized equipment and other electrical hazards. But among most electrical workers there exists the old “it can’t happen to me” attitude of complacency.

The following information comes from Medline Plus, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. As noted below, the first aid directions are of a general advisory nature and are not intended to be applied without the consultation and assessment on on-site first aid providers.

According to NIOSH, at least one of the following five factors was present in all 224 incidents evaluated by the NIOSH fatality investigation program: (1) established safe work procedures were either not implemented or not followed;

According to the Workplace Safety Awareness Council, in an effort to limit electrical injuries in the workplace, OSHA has passed a law that only allows a “Qualified” person to work on or around energized circuits or equipment.

Talking to vendors at last week’s National Safety Congress & Expo, sponsored by the National Safety Council, it’s clear a safety pro who comes to work without a smartphone is going to lost in the dark.

National Pipe and Plastics Inc., of Vestal, NY has been cited by OSHA for 16 serious violations of workplace health and safety standards after a March 22 incident in which a truck driver working for a separate company was fatally struck by a forklift driven by a National Pipe employee.