Our client was working as a line locator, whose job consisted of working with a survey crew in locating and identifying underground utilities and pipelines. On the road entering the site, there was a live powerline that was flagged by goal posts. An 18-wheeler delivering mats safely traversed under the flagging, but when unloading, the stack caught the flagging and pulled it down.
Parts of the flagging material ultimately landed and became entangled with other materials on our client’s truck, including baling wire, an electrically conductive material used to erect the goal posts and flagging.
When our client attempted to remove the flagging from his truck, an electrical volt traversed the flagging material through the baling wire, causing the electricity to enter his left hand and arm and exit through his right leg.
The electrical injury was devastating. He sustained severe burns that required amputation of his arm below the elbow and reconstructive surgery on his foot.
This injury was preventable. Using conductive metal wire to flag a live powerline poses a direct threat to personnel working on the site. Instead of protecting workers from danger, the responsible parties didn’t do their due diligence, leading to severe injury. The Townsley Law Firm recovered a settlement of over $1,500,000 on behalf of our client.
Why Electrical Contact Injuries Are So Catastrophic
Electricity does not injure the way a fall or an impact does. When current passes through the body, it travels through tissue, generating intense heat and damaging everything along its path, often far beyond what is visible on the skin.
Electrical burns frequently involve an entry point and an exit point, and the current cooks tissue, muscle, nerves, and blood vessels between them. That is why a single electrical contact can require amputation at one site and reconstructive surgery at another, as it did here, with our client’s arm and foot both in the path of the current. The visible burns are often only part of the damage; the destruction of deep tissue is what drives the need for amputation and multiple reconstructive procedures.
The energy in an overhead powerline is so high, so contact does not have to be prolonged to be catastrophic. This is exactly why the rules around working near energized lines are so strict, and why the safeguards are supposed to be engineered to make contact impossible rather than merely unlikely.
The Failure: Flagging That Created the Hazard It Was Meant to Prevent
Marking an overhead powerline is supposed to keep workers and equipment away from it. The entire purpose of that safeguard is defeated, and actively made dangerous, when the marking itself is built from a material that conducts electricity.
Conductive metal wire near a live line is a hazard, not a warning. If it contacts the line, it becomes an extension of that line, capable of carrying lethal current to anyone or anything touching it. Non-conductive materials exist and are used for exactly this reason. Choosing conductive wire to flag an energized powerline, in an environment where flagging can fall and be re-raised by workers, set up the precise sequence that injured our client.
Construction and industrial sites are governed by well-established safety standards for working around electrical hazards, including maintaining safe clearances from energized lines, de-energizing lines where feasible, and using proper, non-conductive equipment and barriers. When a company responsible for the site fails to follow those standards and a worker is catastrophically injured, that failure is the basis for holding it accountable.
Workplace Injuries Can Involve More Than Workers’ Compensation
Louisiana workers who are hurt on the job are generally entitled to workers’ compensation benefits from their employer, regardless of fault. However, workers’ compensation is often not the end of the story, and it rarely reflects the full value of a catastrophic injury.
When someone other than the injured worker’s direct employer bears responsibility for the hazard, a separate claim, called a third-party liability claim, may be available. On a construction or industrial site, multiple companies are frequently at work: the property or facility owner, a general contractor, various subcontractors, and companies responsible for specific tasks such as flagging or electrical work. If one of those other parties created or failed to correct the hazard that caused the injury, the worker may pursue a claim against that party beyond workers’ compensation.
This distinction matters enormously in a case like this, because a third-party claim can account for the full scope of harm, including pain and suffering and the lifelong consequences of an amputation that workers’ compensation does not fully address. Identifying every responsible party on a complex worksite is one of the most important parts of building these cases.
