Date of incident: July 2016
Notice of incident number: 2016120030012
Employer: Window-cleaning company

Incident summary
A worker was preparing to wash the uppermost windows of a four-storey commercial-residential building. He was carrying a window-washing pole in the vertical position and extended to about 41 feet. He stepped out onto the roadway near the curb to get around obstructions on the sidewalk, and the pole made contact with high-voltage overhead electrical conductors. The worker sustained serious injuries.

Investigation conclusions

Cause

• Window-washing pole held at vertical angle contacted high-voltage conductor. A worker was moving from one location to another holding an extended window-washing pole. Due to obstructions on the sidewalk (awnings, trees, and shrubbery), the worker walked along or off the curb in the parallel-parking area, and under the overhead conductor. Because the pole was being held in a vertical position, the top of the pole contacted the overhead conductor.

  The pole was made of a conductive material and was wet, allowing it to readily conduct electrical energy to the worker’s hands. This occurred despite the fact that the manufacturer had coated the lower section of the pole with a non-conductive fibreglass coating.

Contributing factors

• Insufficient supervision. The day of the incident, window-washing work on the building face in close proximity to the overhead conductors had not been discussed. The previous day the company had been at the same jobsite. There were no notes from that day regarding a job hazard analysis or a pre-job meeting to discuss site safety.
• No effective work procedures available. There were no written notes of a pre-job meeting, job hazard analysis, or safe work procedures. On the day of the incident, neither the location of the overhead conductors nor any specific work procedures for working near the overhead conductors had been discussed.

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