As you can see in the photograph, the crew was using the boom of an auger truck to prop up an electrical pole while the electrician worked on the light. As always, well-meaning employees getting hurt while taking short cuts to get things done faster, rather than safer.
A city of Modesto employee suffered a fatal injury while working on a streetlight late Monday morning.
Tyrone Hairston, 30, was doing maintenance at the intersection of Floyd and Roselle avenues when the accident occurred. Information on what exactly happened is being investigated, a city spokesman said.
An administrator on the Modesto/Stanislaus County Neighborhood Watch page on Facebook said the worker “was electrocuted, transported to the hospital, but they could not save him.”
As of 3 p.m., the city was not confirming that account.
“Tyrone, an Electrician Assistant I, worked for the city a combined six years,” said Thomas Reeves, the city’s community and media relations officer. “He was originally hired part time as a maintenance aide in Traffic Operations from 2007 to 2009, and rehired in 2014 full time as a Maintenance Worker I in the Solid Waste Management Division.”
The streetlight Hairston was working on was not mounted on its base as Modesto police, fire and other officials worked the scene in the early afternoon. It was being held up by a truck-mounted auger.
The city has not said whether he was working at ground level or elevated. No one else was injured.
Cal/OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has begun an investigation, its Modesto district office said Monday afternoon.
Modesto canceled the City Council’s Safety & Communities Committee meeting that had been scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday because of Hairston’s death. The committee had been scheduled to discuss a proposed rental housing inspection program.
