Electrocution and Electrical Injury
An electrical injury case turns on three technical questions: what energised the object or surface that was contacted, what path the current took through the person, and why the protection in place did not clear the fault before it caused harm. Those questions are answered from the installation itself, from the equipment involved, and from what the physical evidence shows before it is disturbed.
Vilano Engineering is retained on the electrical scope of these matters by attorneys, insurers, condominium associations, property owners and electrical contractors, on either side of a claim.
The energised source is usually identifiable from the installation, but the path and the protection are where cases are won and lost. An equipment grounding conductor that was never installed, a bonding connection that was omitted or corroded away, a ground-fault device that was absent, miswired or had failed, an overcurrent device that was oversized for what it protected — each of these changes what should have happened at the moment of contact, and each is a physical condition that can be documented rather than argued.
This is the part that most often decides how much can be established later, and it is time-sensitive. Equipment gets repaired, replaced or discarded within days of an incident, and once it is gone the analysis available to both sides narrows sharply.
Where the engineer is engaged early, the installation can be documented as found, the relevant equipment identified and preserved, and a joint inspection protocol agreed so that examination and testing happen once, with all parties present, rather than becoming a dispute of its own.
Construction sites, where temporary power, damaged cords and tools, unguarded equipment and contact with overhead conductors account for much of the exposure. Commercial and condominium property, where the installation has been modified over decades by different hands. Swimming pools and spas, where bonding of the shell, the deck, the water and the equipment is the controlling requirement. And docks, marinas and waterfront property, where equipment in a wet and corrosive environment, and current finding its way into the water around a vessel or a dock, present a hazard particular to this part of Florida.
Arc flash matters raise a different set of questions from contact injuries: what the available incident energy was at the point of work, whether the equipment was labelled, whether the work could have been performed with the equipment de-energised, and what protective equipment was called for and provided. The analysis rests on the electrical system as installed and on what was known or knowable about it at the time.
The inspection record, the testing and the analysis carry forward from the early work into the technical case, and the engineer who did the work is the one who explains it.
Send us the incident details →Both. Engagements come from attorneys, insurers, associations, owners and contractors on either side of a claim.
As soon as possible. Equipment is frequently repaired or discarded within days, and what can be established afterwards depends almost entirely on what was documented and preserved before that happened.
Yes, under a protocol agreed between the parties, with the other side's experts present where that is the arrangement.
Yes. The questions differ but both rest on the electrical installation and what it was capable of at the time.
Florida statewide, and in the other states where the firm is licensed — Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, New York, North Carolina and Texas.
Vilano Engineering, LLC is a licensed engineering firm providing building recertification and safety inspections, infrared thermography, electrical design, expert witness services, developer turnover, and property condition assessments.
Nicholas Strachan, PE
Licensed Professional Engineer — Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, New York, North Carolina, Texas
Certified Level II Thermographer
Licensed Plans Examiner — Florida
25+ years in engineering design, inspection, and quality assurance