Two technicians trolleying on guy wire fall to their death while installing station’s antenna
Two tower technicians died at 9:30 a.m. on July 10th after falling approximately 500 feet from a tower south of Kansas 10 near Eudora, Kansas.
Authorities have identified the men as Jerry Case, 54, of Kansas City, MO, and Kevin Keeling, 33, of Independence, MO.
Case was the owner of Structural Inspections, Inc. of Blue Springs, MO. Keeling was his employee.
Douglas County Sheriff Ken McGovern said the men were 500 to 800 feet high, riding in a man-bucket running along one of the guy wires supporting the 1,000-foot four tenant tower owned by TFM Communications, Inc. of Topeka. Something caused the bucket to crash to the ground.
The sheriff’s office is working with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to determine what equipment malfunctioned.
Paramedics, who were on the scene when deputies arrived, pronounced the victims dead at the tower site.
The men were hired by television station KSHB to install an antenna for NBC Action News.
A broadcast engineer who knew Case said the climber was a nationally-renowned engineer and tower worker, and a phenomenal person.
“There were times when he climbed out on the tower with two, three, and four inches of ice on it in the middle of winter to get us back on the air,” said Mike Cooney, director of engineering for Entercom Communications Corp. “He would do whatever it took. And there’s the attitude that the tower crews are crazy and he wasn’t. He was a sane and normal, incredibly intelligent and very passionate about what he did.”
The bodies of the deceased workers were taken to the Shawnee Coroner’s Office in Topeka, where an autopsy on each was to be performed.
The deaths became the sixth and seventh fatality this year of telecommunications workers falling from a communications structure.
Article contributed by WirelessEstimator.com
April 11th, 2008 at 1:51 am
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