California Injury Blog
A 32-year-old man sustained fatal job injuries after he was electrocuted while working on the roof of a Camarillo home. According to a news report in the Ventura County Star, the man was disassembling a chimney the afternoon of August 11, 2011, at a home in the 2500 block of Paseo Noche, when he touched some overhead wires with a piece of metal. Emergency personnel found the worker lying on the roof and not breathing. His heart had also stopped beating. The man was rushed to a local hospital where he died. An investigation is ongoing.
I offer my deepest condolences to the family members and friends of this deceased victim. They will be in my thoughts and prayers.
Electrocution Statistics
According to the Center for Construction Research and Training, between the years of 1993 and 2003, 1,715 people were killed in workplace electrical accidents. Electrical workers were involved in 34 percent of all workplace electrocution fatalities. While 58 percent of fatal electrocution accidents involve electrical wiring and equipment, 34 percent involved contact with an overhead power line. These injuries almost always result in serious injuries or death.
What Caused This Fatal Accident?
According to the report, the worker killed in this accident was on a roof when he made contact with an overhead power line. It is unclear if the worker was aware of how close he was to the power line or if he knew of the dangers he faced. Employers are required to provide adequate training and supervision to their employees. It is also the responsibility of property owners to make sure that they provide safe workplace conditions. I trust officials are looking into how this accident occurred and how it could have been prevented. It is not known at this point if someone else’s negligence led to this fatal work-related injury.
Claim for Compensation
In such cases families of deceased victims would be eligible to receive workers compensation benefits. However, California workers compensation benefits are extremely inadequate when it comes to compensating a family for the loss of its primary wage earner. An experienced Ventura personal injury lawyer will help the family explore the possibility of a third party claim. These are claims that involve negligence or wrongdoing on the part of a “third party” such as a contactor, sub-contractor or the manufacturer of a defective product. Third-party claims are worth a lot more to severely injured workers or families of deceased workers than typical workers compensation.