Harold Employee Accident 9/9

As you may have read in the paper, a Long Island employee was seriously hurt in Harold Friday when he fell from a signal bridge, striking both that catenary and a guy wire. He has serious internal burns and is in critical condition.

The employee was removing old wooden decking from the signal bridge in preparation for replacing it with Fiberglass decking. As 30 feet of the wood was removed, the employee was working over the live wire and track by climbing on the bridge ironwork. He was wearing a safety harness which apparently was arranged without consideration of the live wire below.

When he fell into the wire, his crew and a nearby track gang heard two explosions caused by his body shorting the wire. Nobody in his signal crew was trained in first aid and they feared taking action as he hung suspended from his harness.

Luckly two men on a nearby track gang were trained fireman or EMT's. They heard the explosion, climbed the bridge and hoisted the injured employee back up the bridge where they were able to carry him to safety. This was an excellent gang with one of the road's best foreman. If this signalman lives to see his family again, it will be thanks to this gang.

Service through Harold was restored somewhere around 2:30 PM.

Under OSHA guidelines, with which the Railroad usually does not have to comply, the wire would have to have been de-energized before employees could work this closely to it.

Clem,

If you hear anything as to his future conditions, please let us know.

Joe

Hope he is OK!

This incident shows how it's to every employer's advantage to have volunteer firefighters and medical technicians in your workforce.
You never know when those skills might pay off!

Clem: Interesting reading-again you tell it like it is. I have a couple of questions on this accident: Did the wooden planking cave in or was rotted? When the employe fell on the wires was it near one of the ends of the bridge and was his harness partially to blame? Could Amtrak have provided a class A ET man when these workers were near the wires? I may not be an employee but I was schooled early on by my father-a 38 year railroad man-on the dangers of railroad electricity. I remember reading that all non-qualified employees were to stay more than 8 feet from energized wires or 3 feet with a class A ET man available. Thank goodness in this case the two employees you described were around-risking serious injury or death,they were able to get the injured man to safety - do you know his current condition and how long it will take him to recover? Thanks alot - MACTRAXX

Mac,

I wasn't on the scene, so I can't speak from first hand knowledge, so I'm passing along information I believe is reliable.

The planking was already removed, and the man was walking on the iron frome of the bridge. The harness protected him from the fall. It is possible that it directed him into the wire, but that can only be speculation. The trackmen at the scene did not know.

There was no A Man on the scene. The LIRR often fails to request them, or Amtrack fails to provide them. I'm not sure which is the case here.

There are many liability issues here. I don't know enough to even begin to speculate who was at fault and to what degree.

You and certainly your father are correct. The PRR's (Amtrak's) rules would require an A Man on the site. The exact same rule is probably buried in the LIRR CT 290 Electrical Operating Instructions or the Signal and Communication Departments rules.

I'm awaiting word on the signalman's condition. I know he suffered internal burns.

Clem

Hi Clem, I sincerely hope that he recovers. It's terrible when a person trying to earn a living is injured or killed. Let us know how he is..