Virginia Ladder Hits 230,000 Volt Line During Safety Check

[Geppetto 31]

From WUSA9.com:

"“I heard five big booms. It sounded like an explosion,” said John Mason who lives near Fairfax County’s new Crosspointe fire station where a dangerous mistake could have been deadly.

“We don’t like that this happened, especially to us, but thankfully, nobody was seriously injured,” said Dan Schmidt, a spokesperson for the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.

Ironically, the accident happened during a routine safety check at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday. Schmidt says a firefighter on the ladder truck was raising and moving the ladder when it hit the 230,000 volt transmission line above...."

http://statter911.com/2010/08/12/update-virginia-ladder-hits-230000-volt-line-during-safety-check-3-firefighters-slightly-hurt-31000-lost-power/

EDIT:

additional information on firefightersclose calls.com

http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/news/fullstory/newsid/114292

[IzzyEng4 427]

Rule of thumb - Always look up before you raise and extend and always look everywhere when you move an aerial device.

Just glad no one was seriously hurt or killed.

[INIT915 1,119]

Rule of thumb - Always look up before you raise and extend and always look everywhere when you move an aerial device.

Just glad no one was seriously hurt or killed.

Curious to hear if it was operator error or some other issue. Those lines (at least in the video) seem so obvious, it's curious they would have been doing test/training so close. It looks as if they had a fairly large facility there with ample room to play.

[jack10562 414]

I'm somewhat surprised there was not a standing "no-raise" order for the ladder in the station, due to the proximity of the transmission power lines.

Totally avoidable.

[JBE 328]

I'll say it before anyone else does. Whoops!!!!

Glad to see the members will be ok.

[FFEMT150 214]

I'll say it before anyone else does. Whoops!!!!

Glad to see the members will be ok.

Glad you said it!!!!

And the Darwin award goes to...

Glad no one was hurt, could have been a disaster!

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Glad to hear no brothers from Fairfax were injured. You can have all the orders, SOP's you want, but sometimes crap happens. Guys have off days, complacency you name it. Whether we all think we're purely sharp all the time we all know life has its stresses. I have a good friend who is a Lieutenant in Fairfax and his Rescue was distpatched to that station and even he said he was really nervous what he was gonna roll up to as he does multiple responses a day with that unit and that those guys are top notch sharp firefighters. Sometimes we make mistakes...thank god no one paid for it yesterday!