High-Voltage Power Line Work Is A Peril Not Yet Mastered
One day last August, a 22-year-old apprentice lineman named Matthew Walker Johnson went to work near Frisco, Texas, not far from Dallas. He had been a lineman for two years and loved the job. This day, he was part of a four-man crew sent to repair a line belonging to another utility that accidentally had been cut the day before. In the afternoon, Johnson climbed a pole to move a pulley that would hike up a wire, says his father, Teddy C. Johnson.
What happened next isnt completely clear. But as Johnson secured his safety belt, his back apparently came in contact with an energized, 14,000-volt line, burning him badly. Doctors amputated a leg in an attempt to save him, but he never regained full consciousness and died the next day.