Disappointing Article

[cololinehand]

The article on Fatu's accident was at best very weak. The cover title lead you to believe it was going to be an account of the accident as Fatu experienced it and very possibly written by him.

As I understood by the author's title he is an engineer. There were a few lines in the article that made it sound as if he was writing it for "civilians" not a trade publication, such as describing what the crossarm was for.

I had hoped it would be a first hand account of the accident as to clear up any rumours, misstruths and/or to discuss what the root causes of the accident were, but was left wondering what the point actually was.

I am, however, glad to hear he is continuing living life and furthering his education and feel for him that he lost a pole buddy.

C

[lineman]

The name on the article is wrong. I apologize for this. I tried to get it changed before it went to press and it obviously didn't get fixed....

Fatu wrote the article and I put it in the magazine just as he wrote it. I have asked him for a follow up because the article raised a lot of questions for everyone.

Byron.

[cololinehand]

For the clarification. I hope he does do a follow up, it may help prevent someone else from having the same incident.

C

[wudwoker51]

I agree with cololinehand no need to republish. And by the way no one survives an "electrocution" as the author states. If you are electrocuted you are "dead."

[jerseyslave]

I read the article with interest but had a ton of questions at the end. Having just finished pole top rescue, I really wonder where this occurred. If we could get more feed back on the accident and less of a human interest article it would be great. I passed the mag around the break area this morning and the lack of info was maddening.

Thanks Byron.

[topgroove]

Tom Smart, Deseret News
A worker rescues Fatu Matagi of Bountiful, a contractor who was caught in an electrical accident.


Look at the burn marks. No sleeves? Rubber gloving 15 KV off the pole. His brother lost his arm at the shoulder in 2008

[cololinehand]

I believe that the picture is the accident you are refering to. This accident is a few years old and just recently his younger brother(Sam) lost both of his hands in an electrical accident in western Colorado. There was a link to the video a local TV station did in the Safety forums.

C

[topgroove]

yep that was his brother. Apparantly this contractor has some strange rubber glove rules Not sure if they even have sleeves. here's what we know about sam:

The Facts:

He was working on installing secondary on a de-energized can.

He was a 7th step app in the bucket alone.

The 14.4 primary was covered up 8 FEET out from where he was working.
( I doubt it)
He was out of his rubbers because of the above.
(Gee, with all the missing limbs, maybe they should re-think that one)
The tail he took up in the air was to long and when he threw it out of the bucket it hung up on the edge of the bucket and swung up into the phase just outside of the cover up.

Not sure there's anything we can learn from this other than to run away from that contractor as fast as possible while you still have your limbs!

[cololinehand]

The accident that happened to Fatu was in Utah for Mountain Power(I think).

The accident that happened to Sam was in Kremmling, CO for Sturgeon.

And the cover up on the line that was what the safety dept reported to us.

As an addendum/correction to the report I put on here, the coil was in the bucket with him and while he was attempting to pull the coil out of the bucket to get rid of it the end with the hot line clamp on it sprung out and made contact with phase.

C

[topgroove]

The accident that happened to Fatu was in Utah for Mountain Power(I think).

The accident that happened to Sam was in Kremmling, CO for Sturgeon.

And the cover up on the line that was what the safety dept reported to us.

As an addendum/correction to the report I put on here, the coil was in the bucket with him and while he was attempting to pull the coil out of the bucket to get rid of it the end with the hot line clamp on it sprung out and made contact with phase.

C

yep pretty much what happened. Gee ya think rubber gloves might be a good idea! WTF