Hydro One and one of its employees have been fined a total of $262,000 for their roles in a 2022 incident that led to a worker’s injuries.

Both entered guilty pleas in provincial court. Hydro One was fined $250,000, while worksite supervisor Gregory Diebold was fined $12,000. The court also imposed a 25 percent victim fine surcharge that is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

The incident occurred on September 25, 2022 at a worksite on Howick-Turnberry Road near Gilmour Line in Wingham.

Two workers were installing 21-inch copper leads on a three-phase, 44 kilovolt powerline. They were working from a double-bucket insulated boom truck.

The powerline they were working on was deenergized. A single rural 4.8 kilovolt powerline below them was still live and a cover-up barrier was not applied. The distance between the powerlines was about 20.5 feet.

As one of the workers handed the end of a copper lead to the other, they lost their grip and dropped their end of the lead. The second worker was holding the other end of the lead when it made contact with the live powerline below, causing a critical injury.

A Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development investigation found several failures with respect to section 132 of the Electrical Utility Safety Rules (EUSR). Specifically, the job planners had failed to complete a work plan identifying the hazards at the work location; the job planners did not account for the lead lengths and line heights when assessing the distance between the top of the insulated bucket down to the energized line; and the single rural 4.8 kilovolt power line was not covered or controlled.

Furthermore, the supervisor had been identified on the job plan as a designated observer, but because the work was being done more than three feet away from the lower, energized rural line, they believed a designated observer was not required.

Hydro One was found to have failed, as an employer, to ensure that the work was performed in accordance with section 132 of the EUSR as required by section 181 of Ontario Regulation 213/91, contrary to section27(1)(a) of the of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The supervisor also failed to take every reasonable precaution to prevent hazards to workers from energized electrical equipment, installations and conductors, as required by section 183 of Ontario Regulation 213/91, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.