Workers injured by power lines
By Matt Potter
Skiff Reporter

Two workmen were seriously injured at the Bellaire Ranch apartments Tuesday when the scaffold they were moving was pushed by a gust of wind into a power line, Fort Worth Fire Department spokesman Lt. Kent Worley said.

The two men were working on the gutters when they moved beyond a windbreak and the wind caught the scaffolding, pushing it into an adjacent power line, Worley said. The men were hit with 7,200 volts of electricity, he said.

One of the men was taken by Care Flight to Parkland Memorial Hospital with serious burns, and the other was taken by ambulance to Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital with less severe burns, Worley said.

At press time, attempts to confirm their current conditions from the Fort Worth Police Department, Fort Worth Fire Department, Parkland Memorial Hospital, Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, MedStar, and the Dallas and Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s offices were unsuccessful.

“All my alarms went off and then I heard an explosion,” Bellaire Ranch resident Melissa Clarke said. “I thought it was a wreck, and then I saw the smoke. Sparks were flying. It looked like a war zone.”

The fire department responded to a call at 11:36 a.m. When they arrived, the men were laying on the ground near the scaffolding, Worley said. The power line surged with so much energy that it electrified the ground and the heat created pieces of glass, he said.

“It was pretty scary because I wasn’t sure what happened,” Bellaire Ranch resident Felisha Louffler said. “You could see smoke, and then somebody yelled ‘It’s gonna blow.’”

The explosion happened near the backside of the complex, close to the Trinity River.

The power was purposely turned off on Hulen Street after the explosion so that electrical workers could repair the damaged power lines, Worley said.

Power was restored at about 4 p.m. said Michael Hepler, a worker at Rockfish restaurant.

The Fort Worth Police Department was called in to keep residents away from the energized fence, Lt. Jesse Hernandez said.

The Bellaire Ranch is home to both TCU students and staff but none were available for comment at the time of the accident.

Office managers at the Bellaire Ranch apartments refused to comment, as did the spokesman for their parent company CWS.

“It’s sad. The guys seemed like nice, polite young guys,” Clarke said.