a fellow aborist is electrocuted

A long time freind is gone, please take the time to work safe

BY JASON KUIPER



WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

A 44-year-old Omaha man died Tuesday morning after being electrocuted while clearing trees from a lot at 911 S. 31st St.

Tom Cappellano was loading tree branches onto the bed of a Heartland Tree Service truck about 11 a.m., Omaha police said. He was operating the hydraulic lift at the controls on the side of the truck when the end of the boom came in contact with an active power line.

Cappellano was unconscious on the ground beside the truck when medics arrived and was declared dead at the Nebraska Medical Center.

Jeff Hanson, a spokesman for Omaha Public Power District, said the power line was an 8,000-volt distribution line.

The other employees working at the site were not injured.

A neighbor of Cappellano's remembers him as a friendly man who kept an eye out around the neighborhood.

"He always waved when he saw us or would offer us a beer," Heather Blazicevich said.

Blazicevich said Cappellano would always have time to talk. Another neighbor said Cappellano often had people over for barbecues at his house and enjoyed outdoor activities like camping.

When a large tree limb fell down in Blazicevich's backyard, Cappellano offered to saw it up and haul it away at a discount price.

"He hauled it away for us for next to nothing because he was our neighbor," she said. "He was very easy to get along with."

Cappellano was often seen out playing with his two grade school-age children, the neighbor said.

Staff writer Abe Winter contributed to this report.

How very sad, sorry about your friend. A similar accident happened in Richmond B.C. a couple of years ago, crane truck crane hit the line, guy was electrocuted, truck caught fire and burned the tires off before the circuit kicked. Years ago I helped a couple of carpenters do some form work, they saw a concrete pump truck operator electrocuted in front of them, they were screaming at the guy to stop but he ignored them and put the boom into the line as he was leaning back against the truck. It continued to bother them years after. What can you say? Look up and live.

Hi,
Very sorry to here about your friend. Work safe guys.
Ryan

My condolences to you and your friends family. Always sad to hear of an accident like this that could have been avoided but for one inattentive moment.
Electric lines are no joke and have no mercy, be careful.

My condolences.

my condolences.
If anyone needs a graphic reminder as to what powerlines can do to a misplaced crane boom or line, see this video of a truck that gets contact with an energized line and burns to the ground. Its been around for awhile.
http://www.break.com/index/boompower.html

Sad loss, keep safe!

Sorry to hear that, my respects, the sparky stuff still scares the hell out of me and i worked with it for years, keep your eyes on the sky, those lines can be hard to spot

High voltage is scary stuff. When I see people who are experienced enough with it that they treat it casually, I know I'm seeing a likely fatality.

The post that you never really want to read about. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Live Wires

About once a month I see guys in this area working around live wires that shouldn`t be.I have stopped and talked to alot of them and most of them just either tell me to mind my own business or get the FLOCK off their job site. Some of them I just hang out and make sure they don`t kill themself`s aand others times I just drive away.I would hate to see any of them get hurt, but I really don`t want to turn anybody in for breaking the law . If anyone of them get hurt because I kind of turned my back that`s going to be screwed up.

Condolences...

Man that sucks.

I send tree pics to my friend that can feed himself every christmas.

My condolences to those who knew Tom. He sounds like he was one of the good guys.


Sounds like he was doing something he'd done hundreds of times before, wasn't doing anything silly or pushing the envelope, just routine, but this time just made that one mistake...

I recall myself, a couple of years ago, just getting a 16' aluminium orchard ladder off the ladder rack on top of a chip truck. It was a hedge shearing job, kind of a no-brainer, so I guess I had switched mine off and was operating in auto-mode. I grabbed the ladder at it's balance point, near the middle and went to swing it down and over the side of the truck.

At the very last second, I caught sight of the over head wires I was about to put the ladder into contact with, and had to re-grab the ladder. The top of the chip box was wet with morning dew, I lost my footing and went down flat on my back ontop of the truck, clutching the ladder to my chest.

I was lucky to have seen the wires in time, and not to land on any of the ladder rack projections. My mistake, I hadn't even looked up when I climbed up the ladder on the side of the truck.


Again, condolences to Tom's friends and family.


RedlineIt

To clarify some points-Redline in your case I figure you are talking about wires other than high voltage, that were the cause of this unfortunate accident here. You say you were on top of the chip truck and you swung the ladder, moving half its length above the truck, truck=13ft max, ladder divided by 2=8ft=21ft max. If you look at a typical power line in residential/industrial nieghborhoods in BC the wires mean this. The first line is fat, this is telephone cable, the next are usually three small wires, these are the secondary voltage lines, the botton two have 120v. each, the top little one is a neutral. Then above them is a bigger bare wire, this is always here, it is the neutral for the primarys, about 6'-8ft above that is the primary or primaries in the case of a 3 phase. The primaries are always over 30ft from the ground. There is no limit of approach on the secondaries, but they can hurt/kill if touched, the limit for the primary is always 10ft or more depending on voltage. I am talkng about BC.. Be safe, know what the line is and work around it accordingly.

Yes I saw the news when that happened. My sympathies. Sorry to hear that. I didnt know him. We have 2 of those Elliot hi reaches and I am constantly reminding my guys about the wires.

This is an issue for any industry that uses boom trucks of any type.

In the interest of promoting safety, take a look at the following pages:

http://www.sigalarminc.com/

http://www.engsafety.com/

http://www.engsafety.com/Wx-Tx-Safety/index.html

http://www.engsafety.com/safetypg2/Picture-Gallery/safety-ideas.html

There might be some useful information there...

Another good site:

http://www.arfunk.com/rw-article.html

From the above:

If you must get off a vehicle while it is in contact with a power line, JUMP as far away as you can. Land with both feet together. No part of your body should touch the vehicle and the ground at the same time.

Once you are off the vehicle, realize that the ground may be energized. HOP away from the vehicle, keeping both feet together. This will prevent you from becoming a conductor between two areas of the ground which are charged differently.

An alternative method of traveling over energized ground, advocated by other power companies, is to shuffle, keeping both feet on the ground at all times. Check with the power company in your area and follow their guidelines.

Click to expand...

Some may be thinking, "I thought the ground was, well, grounded. How can it be 'hot'?"

The answer is something called "standing waves". Ever see a fly or moth land in some still water and start buzzing around? Notice the wave pattern that forms around it? They aren't waves that move out from the disturbance - they just sort of heap up in a pattern and stand there. Yes, they do move some, but they are very different from ordinary waves that move out from a pebble tossed into the water.

A picture of standing waves in a teacup.


An explanation of standing waves.

So you can have spots of high voltage (or potential) next to spots of low voltage. If you plant one foot on a high voltage spot and one foot on a low voltage spot, it's just the same as if you had grabbed a hot wire in one hand and a grounded wire in the other - the current flows from high potential to low. Only this time, it's up one leg and down the other.

Ouch. Crispy critter time.

Be safe, folks. Get some training on this. It could save your life.

Treeblitzer said:

About once a month I see guys in this area working around live wires that shouldn`t be.I have stopped and talked to alot of them and most of them just either tell me to mind my own business or get the FLOCK off their job site. Some of them I just hang out and make sure they don`t kill themself`s aand others times I just drive away.I would hate to see any of them get hurt, but I really don`t want to turn anybody in for breaking the law . If anyone of them get hurt because I kind of turned my back that`s going to be screwed up.

Click to expand...

Telling it like it is, some people are just asking for it. Mark, very good links you posted, I am trained to work around power but even so, it was helpfull. I really like the proximety unit. This should be on all equipment used around power by non trained people.

Thanks, clearance. I hope it helps somebody go home at night.


Even you ugly ones!