Anyone working around power lines knows that doing so is a very dangerous job. Many utility company employees are injured on the job or even worse die at work due to work related accidents in South Carolina. The bottom line is that when there is an accident that causes significant injury or results in death, the worker and their families should investigate every possibility to make an adequate recovery and compensate them for their injuries or death, loss of earning capacity, pain and suffering and the like.
Just last week, the Associated Press reported that a utility worker was electrocuted and ultimately died as a result of working on a power line in Macedonia, South Carolina. The man, Jeremy Thomas, was only 25 years of age and worked for the Santee Cooper utility company. He was from Moncks Coroner, which is just outside of Charleston. The on the job accident happened in the morning hours of July 21, 2009.
According to Berkeley County officials, the man was working a highly charged power line when he was electrocuted. He was working in a cherry picker bucket off of a work truck and fell into the bucket when the accident occurred. The deceased worker was later transported to an area hospital where the official word was announced that he had died from the accident.
There were no further details reported about the accident but I am curious whether or not in addition to having a clear South Carolina workers’ compensation claim, the worker has a potential third party case against the cherry picker bucket manufacturer and/or the the company that inspects the bucket. In my experience there have been cases where the controls on the utility truck either jam or do not have a fail safe or “dead man’s” device on them. This matters because the worker can press the controls to move toward a power line expecting the bucket to stop when he takes his hand off of the controls. Sometimes, because the control sticks for example, the bucket continues to move towards the dangerous line causing serious injury or even death. Source: The Associated Press, SC utility worker electrocuted by power line, July 22, 2009.
