PG&E utility worker killed while restoring power lines

[CPOPE]

Jan 11, 2008 COOL, Calif.—A Pacific Gas & Electric Company lineman died while working to restore power lines damaged by last week's storms.
A spokesman for the El Dorado County Sheriff says Felipe Chavez, 31, of Stockton was electrocuted on a power pole Friday afternoon.

Chavez's co-workers got him to the ground where paramedics attempted to revive him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

This is a horrible tragedy," said Jennifer Ramp, PG&E spokeswoman. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, his co-workers and his friends during this difficult time."

The El Dorado County Sheriff's Department received a report of electrocution at 1:47 p.m. Friday on Highway 193 at Penobscot Road in Cool, said Sgt. Bryan Golmitz, public information officer. Sheriff's deputies and Cal Fire responded to the scene. The lineman was confirmed deceased at 1:59 p.m., Golmitz said. Preliminary information indicates the male lineman was in his 30s, Golmitz said.

Both the sheriff's department and PG&E are investigating the incident. Neither Golmitz nor Ramp could provide further information about the deceased, pending family notification.

All PG&E employees working on storm damage have been placed on emergency stand down and are returning to their respective yards, Ramp said.

This is a horrible tragedy," said Jennifer Ramp, PG&E spokeswoman. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, his co-workers and his friends during this difficult time."

"This reinforces that each of the men and women that spent the last week restoring power are absolute heroes," Ramp said. "Our absolute priority is sending our employees home safe every day."

http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=37240

[woody]

My condolences to the workers and especially to the family. my special condolence to the affected LINEMAN and his family!!! woody

[west coast hand]

I was talking to the ba at local 1245 he said it was a 21 kv line and one of the jumpers was laying on the arm making it a hot pole he climbed up when he climbed over the phone he was standing on the phone and when he steped up he had one foot on the phone that was grounded and this hand on the pole, phase to ground its to bad I feel for his family god bless

[BigClive]

But the resultant controlled gradient shock was EXACTLY the type that would probably cause a recoverable state of ventricular fibrillation that could have been counteracted with the use of an AED (defibrillator) once they got the guy down.

Do PG&E issue their guys with defibrillators? Obviously not.

Do I need to say anything else? I mean for Gods sake. Electric shock like this is inevitable in live linework. Are linemen really that disposable? :(

I'm sure the dude went up the pole in a routine manner, not realising there was gradient on the pole caused by a fault which to all intents and purposes was probably not visible from the ground under the inclement conditions associated with storm work.


One day the industry will look back at the "old" days when this crucial piece if a line-crews tool kit was not standard and marvel at the amount of deaths that could have been averted.

[topgroove]

I totally agree with you clive. is'nt amazing how companies will spend millions on gps locating but don't spend a dime on defibulators that can save a life. I don't know what it like at other utilities but it seams here they could care less.

[swetngblts]

Is there any type of device that could sniff the hazard before setting foot on the pole in the first place?

[Bull Dog]

I know your pulling my leg but here goes anyway. If your a new line app i understand. The thing between your ears is the best sniffer you got and its not your nose. pls use it early and often. May not help always but should most of the time.

[swetngblts]

Nope, not pulling your leg. Serious question! not in the trade yet.

[BigClive]

If it's dark and stormy then it's not going to be that easy to see a wire that's dropped from it's insulator and is touching the supporting structure. The angle the top of the pole is viewed from could also give the impression that the wire is in it's correct place. Long thin black lines in the sky are just so hard to get a proper visual perspective on at times.

I can't honestly think of a device that would reliably have detected that scenario, since the gradient on the pole itself would have been hard to detect in comparison to the normal gradient to ground from the wires above. So a field type of detector wouldn't have worked. The bulk of the leakage may have been between the top of the pole and the point the telephone line touched it, if indeed the telephone line was actually involved as a ground. It may have been that as the poor guy climbed the pole it caused a borderline connection from the wire to the pole and the gradient down the pole itself would have been high enough to cause significant current flow through the linemans body.

You guys will hate it when I say this, but this is an instance when the use of gloves while climbing the pole could have prevented the incident. Any significant gradient effect would then have been limited between the linemans feet as he spiked his way up the pole. Hopefully his boots would have protected against that lower voltage, but then, well used boots in wet weather aren't exactly great insulators. Then again, leg to leg is much lower risk than a hand-hand or hand-foot shock. Of course, if he had received a significant foot-foot shock then he may have cut out and hugged the pole, which could have had equally bad results.

I'm afraid this is just another hard lesson for everyone to learn from. :(

[Bull Dog]

I dont think most of us would climb a pole with 20k on it and in a storm at night forget it. Only thing to do is call for a second bucket truck. I wonder what the man in his hooks was supposed to do. Im shure well never know why this happened. My condolences to the mans family.

[NJ glove]

if the work was accessible from a bucket he shouldnt have been climbing that pole. that's just another unnecessary risk to take. our job is so dangerous to begin with that if you can minimize the hazard then do so. if they only had one truck then I guess the work should have waited until another truck arrived. the only time you should work from the hooks is if theres absolutely no access from a truck. work smarter not harder. god bless his family n friends.

[BigClive]

There's no information on the location of the pole. It might have been in an area a bucket couldn't get to. Whether it was light or dark is also speculation.

The only ones who know the full story are the poor guys co-workers.

[woody]

pole was not accessible to any bucket truck or line truck. climber...nobody knew the other hazzard...the one that killed the lineman. what you see from the ground is sometimes different in or on the pole or air. aed unit would not of made a difference in this situation...although i strongly fight for them to be on our trucks and for that matter...all trucks! woody.

[loner]

i work for the same co. and we were just given a new work procedure because of this .what we have to do now is attach a dead tester to an 8 foot hot stick test the pole,test the down guy above and below the bob.if there is any concern at all over the safety of climbing after these tests we are being told to dump the circuit.

[BigClive]

I bet there's an initial effort to do that before you guys get too used to a zero reading and stop doing it. It's just one of those rare things.

Besides, it wouldn't help if the wire was on borderline contact with the pole hardware and made contact with the movement of the pole being climbed or even the weather conditions.

Talking about weather conditions, it's well stormy here in Scotland. I actually had an indoor job the last couple of days. Nice!

[loner]

absolutely right clive problem is we are dealing with college grads who have never been in the field or know what a live jumper means.

[west coast hand]

From what i heard for a friend that work for pg&e he was climbing the pole to hook up a service so you just never now be safe brothers

[tjones]

I may have missed something here. If it was an energized pole did he have his rubber gloves on.