To avoid potential hazards in line work, very stringent safety protocols and requirements need to be met. Workers undergo extensive safety training and perform their jobs wearing specialized personal protective equipment. While fatalities and life-­altering injuries occur, the vast majority of accidents are preventable. Below is an example of a real incident from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health archives. Let’s consider how to prevent a similar one from happening again.

Background

An electric utility lineworker was electrocuted while performing maintenance on a 7,200V overhead power line. The victim had worked for the utility for six weeks and did not have any previous power line work experience or training. 

The utility had been in business for more than 30 years at the time of the accident and used a safety policy and program and basic written safe work procedures. Although the employer didn’t have a full-time dedicated safety professional, a company management official was designated as the safety liaison and conducted weekly safety meetings. 

The victim had been assigned to investigate and repair a problem involving intermittent power outages in a rural community. Two weeks before the incident, the victim isolated and replaced what he thought was the outage problem, which was an arcing electric service line at a utility pole. 

A day before the incident, the victim returned to the site of the suspected problem to repair and replace several other electric service lines in the area. He was assisted by two co-workers hired by the utility on an as-needed basis. 

Before performing the maintenance work, the victim de-energized each electric service line by opening its corresponding cut-out fuse with a hot stick. However, he failed to ground the line by temporarily splicing a jumper cable between the primary phase and the neutral phase, as required by written company procedures.

The accident 

On the day of the incident, the victim climbed the utility pole to adjust the primary phase jumper cable, which he apparently thought was another probable arcing source. He was wearing leather work gloves, but not lineman’s gloves or a protective helmet. Additionally, the victim had left his PPE and hot stick at another location. 

When the incident occurred, the victim had a left climbing boot gaff planted in the utility pole, and the right climbing boot was in contact with the pole guy wire. The victim’s left arm and hand were resting on the neutral phase. The worker likely thought that the power line had been de-energized and grabbed the energized primary phase jumper cable with his right hand. 

This provided a path to ground. The electric current entered through the right hand and exited at the left arm and hand and right foot, electrocuting the worker. Although his two co-workers didn’t see the accident occur, they looked up at the victim after hearing “a burning sound,” and saw sparks coming out of his right hand and smoke coming from the right pant leg.

The aftermath 

First responders arrived on the scene within 10 minutes. They found the victim unresponsive and hanging limply from a pole-climbing belt near the top of the utility pole. The power line was de-energized about 20 minutes after the incident by a telephone line technician responding to an emergency CB radio call. The telephone line technician climbed the utility pole and lowered the victim with a rope. 

CPR was administered while waiting for a medevac air transport to the hospital. The attending physician pronounced the victim dead on arrival. A forensic pathologist indicated the worker may have been under the influence of marijuana at the time of the accident.

What to do differently

NIOSH concludes that, to prevent similar occurrences, employers should ensure that all workers who perform maintenance on overhead power lines are properly trained in safe work procedures, adhere to all state and federal regulations and safe work procedures established by the electric utility industry and use all appropriate PPE before working on power lines with energized circuits. 

Employers should design, develop and implement a comprehensive safety program that includes specific written procedures for all work near energized power lines. They should also adopt measures to ensure that lineworkers are free from the use of controlled substances, especially while on the job.

Information Source: NIOSH Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Program

Header image: Getty Images / invincible_bulldog