Real-World Accident
Scaffold Too Close To Power Line
A 40 year old male meter technician had just completed a seven week basic lineman training course. He worked as a meter technician during normal working hours and as a lineman during unplanned outages. One evening, he was called to repair a residential power outage. By the time he arrived at the site of the outage, he had already worked two hours of overtime and worked 14 straight hours the day before. At the site, a tree limb had fallen across an overhead power line. The neutral wire in the line was severed and the two energized 120-volt wires were disconnected. The worker removed the tree limb and climbed up a power pole to reconnect the three wires. He was wearing insulated gloves, a hard hat, and safety glasses.
He prepared the wires to be connected. While handling the wires, one of the energized wires caught the cuff of his left glove and pulled the cuff down. The conductor contacted the victim's forearm near the wrist. He was electrocuted and fell backwards. He was wearing a climbing belt, which left him hanging upside down from the pole. Paramedics arrived five minutes after the contact. The power company lowered his dead body 30 minutes later.