Two workers were up in a double-bucket boom truck, replacing copper leads on a 44,000-volt powerline. That line was de-energized. They had done the work to make it safe.
The problem was the line underneath them. A single rural 4,800-volt line ran below the work area, and it was still live. Nobody had put a cover-up barrier on it. As one worker handed a copper lead across to the other, he lost his grip. The second worker, still holding his end, was pulled into contact with the live line. He was critically injured.
What Happened
On September 25, 2022, a Hydro One crew was working near Wingham, Ontario, on Howick-Turnberry Road. The task was routine for a line crew: install 21-inch copper leads on a three-phase 44 kV line from an insulated boom truck. The crew de-energized the line they were working on. Good.
But the job wasn't only about the line they were touching. It was about every energized conductor in reach. The 4.8 kV distribution line below them stayed live, and it never got a cover-up barrier. Investigators found the clearance between the bucket and that energized line had been miscalculated, and there was no site-specific work plan for the job. When the lead slipped, there was nothing between the worker and 4,800 volts.
The court heard that this was a foreseeable outcome of skipping steps that exist for exactly this moment.
What the Law Says
Hydro One pleaded guilty under section 181 of Ontario Regulation 213/91. That section requires work on or near an electrical transmission or distribution system to be carried out in accordance with the Electrical Utility Safety Rules, including the cover-up requirements in rule 132. The supervisor, Gregory Diebold, pleaded guilty under section 183 of the same regulation, which requires taking every reasonable precaution to protect workers from energized electrical equipment, installations, and conductors.
Basically, what this means is simple: de-energizing the line you are working on is not the whole job. Every live conductor a worker or a tool could reach has to be covered, guarded, or cleared first. The rule does not care that the contact line was "only" 4.8 kV or that it was below the real work. It was live, it was reachable, and it was left exposed.
The court convicted Hydro One Networks Inc. and fined the company $250,000. Diebold was fined $12,000. The combined penalty was $262,000, plus the 25% victim fine surcharge.
Three Things This Case Teaches Ontario Crews
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Cover-up is about what a worker can reach, not what a worker is working on. The energized line here wasn't the job. It was the line below the job, and it still put a worker in the hospital. Walk the whole reach envelope of the bucket, the tools, and the material before anyone goes up. Every live conductor in that envelope gets covered or cleared.
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A site-specific work plan is the control that catches the line you forgot. There wasn't one here. A plan forces the crew to name every energized part in the work zone and decide what to do about each one before the truck moves. The clearance that got miscalculated is exactly the number a written plan makes you check.
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Voltage does not equal danger ranking. Crews focus hard on the high-voltage line and treat the smaller one as background. A worker was critically injured by the smaller line, not the 44 kV one. Every energized conductor gets the same discipline.
If your crews work on or near live distribution or transmission systems, put this case in front of them before the next job. Ask them to point to the last cover-up barrier they installed and explain why it went where it did. Then ask what live conductor was in reach that did not get one. What they say, and what they do not say, will tell you where your next incident is waiting.