Faulty part on power pole caused Everett man's death

EVERETT, Wash. — An investigation by Puget Sound Energy reveals a faulty piece of a power pole fell off and brought the line that electrocuted an Everett man down with it.

Christopher Johnson, 53, didn't see the line down behind the Mountain View Diner in Gold Bar -- and walked right into it.

After the March incident, PSE inspected all of its power poles from Skykomish to Everett.

Many of the horizontal pieces that hold the lines -- called the cross arms -- are made out of wood and have deteriorated.

Jarrod Spence, the deputy fire chief with Snohomish County Fire District 26, was the first to respond to the call which he found so disturbing he didn’t want to go into many details.

Spence says when his firefighters got to the scene, there was little they could do.

“We can’t finalize or decide the patient is deceased until we can make contact with that patient,” Spence said, and they couldn’t do that for about 45 minutes until utility crews shut off power—all the while Christopher Johnson’s body lay underneath the power line that electrocuted him.

“A lot of people were coming in and out of that diner and then just having to stand there and not being able to do anything—we’ve got to protect ourselves,” Spence explained.

Officials say a surveillance camera at the back of the restaurant showed Johnson was wearing anda hat and likely couldn’t see the downed line hanging about five feet off the ground; he walked right into it.

After months of iinvestigation, Puget Sound Energy determined the line came down when a deteriorated cross arm broke said Grant Ringel, PSE's director of communications.

Cross arms are inspected every 10 years and the pole that broke passed its last inspection in 2011, Ringel said.

After Johnson’s death, PSE replaced every cross arm and some poles in Gold Bar, then used a drone to inspect every pole between Skykomish and Everett.

“It was a zero-tolerance inspection so if there was any concern that even in a storm there would be a problem, it was replaced,” said Ringel.

The pole that led to Johnson’s death now has a metal cross arm; too late to save Johnson but not too late to save someone else.

“With them going through and changing all those out, it’s going to decrease the chance of it happening again,” Spence concluded.

Cox Media Group