I just read that this morning Asplundh Construction had a fatality on a pole change out today. The job was in Romulus Michigan on a DTE Energy line.
That is all the information I could find it didn't say if it was a lineman, Apprentice, or Groundman. RIP
I just heard that a fella got burned a couple of weeks ago in Toronto. Details are few and far between.
Hey Rob I guess no body on this page cares about this topic any more.
Pretty sad Tramp
"It is not the critic who counts:The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena" Teddy Roosevelt
It's not that people don't care it's that there is very little information available and unless there is good first hand info you can't really comment, News reports are totally unreliable {every loud bang is a transformer explosion} and because of lawyers Companies won't release information, There was a time they would share info to stop a re occurrence but now with no nothing management and just bean counters and lawyers running things you'll never hear the the straight story.
At least I got some comments.......
Well Tramp I am going to comment. It looks to me like my prediction is coming true. Since you started this thread I have heard of 5 incidents including this one . Yesterday I learned a fella in Cheektowaga N.Y. died of his injuries from the day before, I heard it was a pole change out no details. Then there was an incident east of Toronto where a young lad got burned, I don't know how bad. Rumour has it a fella got hurt on some tower job here in Ontario in the last few days, plus the one I mentioned a week or so ago makes 5.
The ones I know about involved young fellas. Some lack of communication too. Lack of experience, is likely involved too.
Around here it seems the trend for younger ( less experienced fellas ) to be made supervisors. They won't stand up to their bosses and try to protect their crews , mostly because they suffer from a lack of knowledge.
Modern companies rely on the Dunning Kruger effect to exploit younger people and save money on things like training. Why spend years teaching someone to do the job properly when you can get a kid from a college with a disclaimer certificate. This is happening in all facets of the electrical trade around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnin...3Kruger_effect
The Dunning Kruger effect is where someone with a little knowledge thinks they are an expert in their field simply because they don't know any better. Corporations find it useful, since they can use labourers to do electrical work cheaply with literally one-day slideshow presentations.
I'll make a guess that the fatality referenced in this article was the VERY common pole change-out where the crane driver is trying to guide a pole between wires with no reliable depth perception at all against a bright background. The pole touches a live cable and conducts enough to affect the heart rhythm of the person guiding it in on the ground.
Really common, and a defibrillator would be capable of restoring heart sync in almost every case. But they really couldn't care less. If you guys had a real union that actually worked for you instead of being an inbred mess of nepotism and fraud then this wouldn't happen.
Portable defibrillators were first invented to save the lives of linemen. Where's yours?
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