On Saturday morning, Ken Mitchell Waddell, 30, of Crossville, Tenn. kissed his wife, Cadie, and their five children goodbye and drove 45 minutes to Cookeville to help erect a 70-foot guyed tower for a ham radio operator on private property. Late in the afternoon, expecting him to be home shortly for dinner with their five children, she received the horrific news that her …
Puerto Rico death is second industry tower tech fatality in April
A 28-year-old tower technician died Saturday after he was electrocuted while working on an AT&T LTE installation in Puerto Rico. According to sources knowledgeable of the incident, Josean Matos Rodriquez, employed by FM Technology Group of Dallas, Tex., was working on a residential rooftop when he came into contact with a 13kv power line. Authorities said the incident occurred at 10:50 …
Services set for Alabama tower tech, the nation’s first 2018 fatality
Services have been set for Melvin Ronnie Nelson, Jr., 34, a resident of Foley, Ala., who passed away Mon., April 2, while working on a new Verizon tower installation in Utica, Miss. Nelson was the first industry-related fatality in 2018. According to Hinds County Sheriff Major Pete Luke, “The tower was being erected just off Hwy. 27 near Bear Creek …
ISP worker falls to his death from a backyard broadband tower
Update: January 2, 2018 – OSHA has opened their investigation into the workplace accident that took the life of technician Richard C. Andrews, the eight industry fatality in 2017. In 2016 there were seven fatalities. Update: January 1, 2018 – Services have been announced for Richard C. Andrews, age 31, a resident of Manitowoc, Wisc. who fell from a tower …
Top 10 industry stories in 2017 trailed with one fake news article
Below are the top 10 articles that appeared in Wireless Estimator during 2017 based upon the number of views each one received, such as the September rigging accident that claimed the lives of three industry workers. It had 6,000 Facebook likes, was shared on LinkedIn over 900 times, and had been viewed over 48,000 times With Wireless Estimator’s safety-centric audience …
Weekend Kansas fatality is nation’s 7th industry death in 2017
January 3, 2018 – UPDATE: Authorities have released a statement that Clayton Donnell Barnhill of Grayson, La., was working on a communications tower fell approximately 320 feet to the ground from a 420-foot guyed tower. Based on reports by the Trego County Sheriff’s Office, a coworker on the tower with the deceased heard the deceased “click” his safety harness on, then …
Tower tech’s 150-foot fall in Mississippi is nation’s second 2017 fatality
Update: May 3, 2017 – Kris Edward Runyon, 39, has been identified as the tower technician who fell from a Crown Castle guyed tower near Meridian, Miss. yesterday evening and was pronounced dead at the scene. A resident of Portsmouth, Ohio, Runyon had been working for D&K Nationwide Communications Inc. of Bristol, Conn. for the past year, but according to the …
Crane collapse takes the life of a 51-year-old Texas industry worker
Update: April 26, 2017 – The cell tower compound that RMCI’s crane toppled into is owned by Crown Castle International. April 25, 2017 – A 51-year-old industry worker was killed yesterday afternoon when a crane tipped on its side in downtown Dallas, Tex., crashing into a cell tower compound in the 1700 block of Arts Place, according to Dallas Fire-Rescue …
California wireless contractor and his family killed in Oregon plane crash
A well-known and respected California contractor and his family were killed Friday while on a college scouting trip when their plane crashed in a rural field in Oregon. Authorities said John A. Zitting, 42, of Thousand Oaks, Calif.; his wife, Karen Blackmore Zitting , 37; and their son, John Brendan Zitting, 17, were headed to Eugene to visit the University …
Texas space program post says student was never in danger while climbing tower
A representative of the Eldorado Space Program, an Eldorado, Tex. high school program that teaches students to design instrumentation packages and launch them into space, said on its Facebook page Saturday that a cover story photograph in the March edition of QST published by the National Association for Amateur Radio, represented an inaccurate, unsafe depiction of a student climbing a …
Cover girl climber shot could send high schoolers to their death
Commentary – The March issue of a well-respected magazine published by The National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL) will most likely latch onto the literal lunacy award for depicting in a photograph the most egregious tie-off violations one could imagine. In QST’s latest edition, their antenna issue, the cover shows a picture of Chase Mertz of Eldorado, Tex. climbing a …
Tech’s life is thankfully spared after his lift comes in contact with 115,000 volts
A tower tech is lucky to be alive after his bucket lift equipment came in contact with a 115,000 volt transmission line in Fresno, Calif. on Thursday at about 9:15 a.m. when he was servicing a carrier’s equipment on a monopole. The man was rescued by Pacific Gas and Electric employees who had to wait two hours until the power …
Checkered contractor loses lawsuit after two tower tech deaths
Based upon substantial evidence to support their findings, a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has kayoed a wireless contractor’s final attempt to vacate the company’s serious violations of OSHA’s General Duty Clause and $7,000 in fines they received following an accident that killed two of their employees on May 28, 2013. Both men, employees …
Services set for tech who fell from a 160-foot Oklahoma monopole
UPDATE: Nov. 7, 2016 – Services have been announced for Steven Lamar Hill, 44, of Chandler, Okla. by the Barnes Friedrich Funeral Home, 1820 South Douglas Blvd., Midwest City, Okla. beginning at 1:00 p.m., Nov. 9, 2016. Interment will follow at Elmwood Cemetery in Choctaw, Okla. UPDATE: Nov. 3, 2016 – Authorities have released the name of the deceased tower …
Cop’s shooting of tower tech had none of the outrage being shown in Charlotte death
After a Charlotte, N.C. police officer ten years ago shot and killed an AFL Network Services tower technician, Anthony Wayne Furr, 41, while he was working in a Sprint equipment shelter, the officer said he was in fear of his life and was exonerated. Sadly, following Tuesday’s killing of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott by police, Furr’s children will revisit the memories …
Wives of murdered tower techs sue the Coast Guard for wrongful death
The wives of two Alaskan tower technicians who were gunned down by a co-worker filed a lawsuit against their husbands’ employer, the U.S. Coast Guard, stating that it should have been known that their spouses’ murderer, James Wells, “was a disgruntled and dangerous employee.” The August 5, 2016 complaint by Nicola Belisle and Deborah Hopkins, is seeking over $1 million …
Tower tech who was shot by his co-worker passes away in San Antonio
Update: August 11, 2016 – A memorial service for Brandon Cartwright will be held on Tuesday, August 16 at 10:30 a.m. at Northeastern Junior College, Sterling, CO. An altercation between two tower tech co-workers on July 28 in San Antonio, Tex. sent one of the men to University Hospital after he was shot in the chest and the other to jail where he’s …
New York county fire official is killed while at tower site doing maintenance
The top fire official in Tioga County, N.Y was killed yesterday when a county pickup truck struck him while backing up, according to the county’s sheriff’s department. Tioga County Fire Coordinator John Scott, 71, of Campville, was one of several employees who were performing maintenance at a county radio tower on Carmichael Rd. in the Town of Owego when he …
State by state industry deaths analysis provides a linch pin for continuing dialogue
For 13 years, Wireless Estimator has been compiling data on industry-related fatalities, and presented that information last month to a dozen public and private safety professionals for analysis to see if there are any common threads that could be explored to reduce tower climber deaths. The only commonality, however, was that although there were 116 fatality incidents since 2003, assigning any significance based upon …
After foundations rush in, Georgia tower tech will be finally laid to rest
Services will be held tomorrow, Friday, June 24, 2016, for Kenton Seales at 12:20 p.m. at the Life Church Christian Center at 1300 Old Covington Rd., Conyers, Ga. Seales, 36, passed away on June 11 when the company vehicle he was a passenger in crashed into another vehicle that was towing a semi-trailer on I-10 in Hudspeth County, Tex. After …
