Someone Got an Electric Shock at Work: What a QLD Business Must Do

Byron Knight, Licensed Electrical Contractor

QLD Lic. 1511406 · 20+ years’ experience · Gold Coast & SEQ · Updated October 2026

A staff member grabs a kettle with a split cord. A cleaner gets a jolt off a floor polisher. A tenant reports a tingle from a common-area tap. When that happens in a cafe, office, shop or strata building, most managers know to help the person. Far fewer know the business now has a legal job to do as well, and that the first instinct (“unplug it, bin it, get the sparky to swap it”) can break the rules.

This guide covers the order to do things in, when a shock becomes a notifiable incident under Queensland law, what “don’t disturb the site” actually means, and what happens with the faulty equipment afterwards. It’s written for business owners, practice managers, body corporate committees and strata managers, not electricians.

First five minutes: the order that matters

The Electrical Safety Office’s emergency guidance and the St John Ambulance electric shock fact sheet agree on the sequence. Put it on the wall next to your first aid kit.

1. Don’t touch the person while they’re still in contact. If they’re holding the faulty item, the current can pass to you.
2. Turn the power off. At the switch, the plug or the main switch on the switchboard. If you can’t, the ESO says to separate the person from the source using a non-conductive item.
3. Call 000 if they are injured, unconscious or burnt. Follow DRSABCD and start CPR if they are not breathing. St John advises cooling electrical burns under running water for 20 minutes.
4. Stay well clear of anything involving powerlines. For fallen lines, Energex says to stay at least 10 metres away and call 000 or the Energex emergency line on 13 19 62.
5. Get them medically checked, even if they feel fine. The ESO’s shocks and tingles page warns that “even if you feel ok, an electric shock can have serious delayed effects.” St John recommends medical assessment for possible effects on the heart, even after a mild shock.
6. Isolate the equipment and stop anyone using it. Leave it where it is. Don’t throw it out or let anyone repair it yet (more on why below).

When does a shock become a notifiable incident?

Queensland’s Electrical Safety Act 2002 defines two kinds of event that must be reported. The key one for most businesses is a serious electrical incident (section 11). In plain terms, that is an incident involving electrical equipment where:

• a person is killed by electricity, or
• a person receives a shock or injury from electricity and is treated by, or under the supervision of, a doctor, or
• a person receives a shock or injury from electricity at high voltage, whether or not they are treated.

The second is a dangerous electrical event (section 12). It includes significant property damage caused by electricity, electrical work done by someone who isn’t licensed to do it, and electrical work that leaves a person or property not electrically safe. Nobody has to be hurt for it to count.

Who has to notify, how fast, and how

WorkSafe Queensland’s incident notification page is direct about it. Anyone can report, but the person conducting the business or undertaking (the PCBU) is the one legally required to, “and there are penalties if they don’t.”

• When: “immediately after becoming aware that a notifiable incident has happened.” Not at the end of the shift, and not after the investigation.
• How: phone 1300 362 128, use WorkSafe’s online form, or email the form. After hours, the phone line goes to a messaging service and an on-call inspector responds.
• Written follow-up: WorkSafe says that if you notify by phone, written notification isn’t required.
• Records: keep a record of the notification for at least five years.

The incident notification duties now sit in Part 14 of the Electrical Safety Regulation 2026, which replaced the 2013 Regulation on 1 September 2026. If your safety manual or induction pack still quotes 2013 section numbers, it’s due for an update.

“Don’t disturb the site”: what you can and can’t do

This is where good intentions cause problems. WorkSafe’s site preservation guidance says you must make sure an incident site isn’t disturbed until an inspector arrives. It’s an offence to interfere with it without the permission of an inspector or police officer.

Two details make this workable:

• It only covers the area where the incident happened, not your whole workplace. The rest of the cafe or office can usually keep going.
• There are exceptions. You may disturb the site to help an injured person, to make the site safe or reduce the risk of another incident, or to help police. An inspector can also give permission over the phone.

So turning off the circuit to make it safe is fine. Pulling the appliance apart, swapping the power point, or putting the kettle in the skip is not. Ask the inspector before anything is moved, repaired or replaced.

After the inspector: fault-finding and getting back to normal

Once you’ve got the all-clear to proceed, the job is to work out why it happened, not just replace the obvious item. In our experience the visible culprit (a damaged cord, a cracked power point) is often a symptom. The questions that matter are:

• Did a safety switch trip? If the circuit had RCD protection and it didn’t trip, the switch itself needs testing. If there was no safety switch on that circuit, that’s the first gap to close. Our safety switch and RCD testing service covers both push-button and operating-time tests.
• Is the earthing sound? A shock from a metal appliance case or a tap often points to an earthing problem, not the appliance. That needs proper fault finding with test instruments.
• Is this one item, or a pattern? If the equipment was overdue for test and tag, others probably are too.

The ESO’s guidance after any shock or tingle is simple: stop using the item immediately and get a licensed electrician to check it. Any repair to fixed wiring is electrical work that must be done by a licensed electrician, and the contractor must give you a certificate of testing once it’s done. Keep that with your incident record.

Stopping the next one: what a sensible business puts in place

Workplace shocks rarely come out of nowhere. The usual warning signs are a cord taped up, a power point that “sometimes sparks,” or a safety switch nobody has pressed in years. Prevention is cheap compared with the downtime and the paperwork after an incident.

• Know your intervals. Queensland sets test-and-tag and safety switch testing intervals by type of work. Our test and tag guide covers the 2026 Regulation tables, and our commercial electrical maintenance guide pulls the full calendar together.
• Put it on a schedule. A fixed-price preventative maintenance plan means the safety switch tests, switchboard checks and emergency lighting tests happen on time, with records you can show an inspector or insurer.
• Make reporting easy. Staff should know that a tingle, a hot plug or a burning smell gets reported the same day, without blame. Our guide to what counts as an electrical emergency is a good one to share with your team.
• Strata buildings: sort out who owns which circuits before something happens. Our body corporate vs unit owner guide sets out the usual split.

Gold Coast businesses: getting help fast

Knight Electrical Solutions is based in Palm Beach and works with cafes, retail shops, medical and allied health practices, offices and strata buildings across the southern Gold Coast, from Coolangatta and Currumbin up through Burleigh Heads, Varsity Lakes and Robina to Broadbeach. If something has happened after hours, our 24/7 commercial emergency electrician service puts you through to our team, not a call centre.

One thing to be clear about: we’re not the regulator. Your first calls are 000 if someone is hurt and WorkSafe if it’s notifiable. We come in to make the site safe when you’re allowed to, find the cause, fix it properly and document it.