UTILITY WORKER KILLED AS HE RESTORED STORM OUTAGE
A Nashville Electric Service lineman has been electrocuted as crews worked to restore power outages caused by storms. A utility spokeswoman says Curtis Peterson Junior had climbed a power pole in the Joelton area on Nashville's northwest edge and touched a live line. Teresa Corlew says another lineman working with Peterson called 9-1-1, did a pole top rescue, then performed C-P-R on the victim until an ambulance arrived. The incident occurred shortly after eleven p-m Central time yesterday. Peterson was pronounced dead at Skyline Medical Center.

Something needs to be said about the safety practices of the Line Crews in the US.
I would call it SLACK!!.
Guys not wearing simple protection like gloves, hats and so-forth, is just a joke!.
It doesn't say a lot for the Overseers(Supervisors) of these Line Crews!.

Personally though,
I have a Voltage detector with a forked end on it, that fits on to the end of my Hot-Stick, if it glows, it means that the line is still live.
It works from 230 up to 36kV, and it cost me NZ$189, a small price to pay, for my own safety.
Why the h**l can the line crews not have a device like this with them?.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 06-16-2003).]

Mike — I’ve wanted to ask if noncontact AC-voltage “Modiewark Testers” were common in NZ. Here’s a grab shot of a universal-stick mounted one—a higher-voltage version of the marker-pen-sized 600V models. It has daylight-visible LEDS and an obnoxious piezo squeaker, with AC ranges from 240V {tests fine on 120V} up to 230kV, and a foam-lined storage tube. If you gotta’ stake your life on any instrument, this one’s my favorite.

There are other versions that are good for ~800kV.










[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 06-15-2003).]

Trumpy, I forgot to mention that the non-contact Modiewark Testers are manufactured in Australia.