Worker electrocuted after copper wire they were holding made contact with a live powerline
Ontario employer Hydro One Networks Inc. was fined $250,000 after one of its workers was critically injured in the workplace.
The incident happened Sept. 25, 2022, when two workers were installing 21-inch copper leads on a 3-phase 44 kilovolt powerline. They were working from a double bucket-insulated boom truck.
The powerline they were working on was de-energized. A single rural 4.8 kilovolt powerline below them was still live and a cover-up barrier was not applied. The distance between the powerlines was about 20.5 feet.
As one of the workers handed the end of a copper lead to the other, they lost their grip and dropped their end of the lead. However, the second worker was still holding the other end of the lead when it made contact with the live powerline below, causing a critical injury.
A Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development investigation found several failures with respect to section 132 of the Electrical Utility Safety Rules (EUSR), including:
- The job planners failed to complete a work plan identifying the hazards at this specific work location.
- The job planners, including the supervisor, did not account for the lead lengths and line heights when assessing the distance between the top of the insulated bucket down to the energized line.
- The single rural 4.8 kilovolt power line was not covered or controlled.
“Hydro One Networks Inc. failed, as an employer, to ensure that the work was performed in accordance with section 132 of the EUSR as required by section 181 of Ontario Regulation 213/91, contrary to section27(1)(a) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” said the Ontario government.
During the incident, a supervisor – Gregory Diebold – had been identified on the job plan as a designated observer. However, because the work was being done more than 3 feet away from the lower, energized rural line, they they believed a designated observer was not required, according to the government.
Diebold was also fined $12,000 for the incident.
“The supervisor also failed to take every reasonable precaution to prevent hazards to workers from energized electrical equipment, installations and conductors, as required by section 183 of Ontario Regulation 213/91, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the of the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” said Ontario.
Following the employer and the supervisor’s guilty pleas in the Provincial Offences Court in Goderich, the court also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
