PSE concludes Gold Bar investigation

Puget Sound Energy staff found a deteriorated wooden crossarm caused a power line in Gold Bar to fall, killing Christopher G. Johnson on March 27.

Video surveillance captured by the Mountain View Diner showed the 53-year-old Everett man walk into the live wire. Restaurant staff who watched the footage said he was wearing a cap and had his head down at the time.

An employee who was taking out the trash discovered Johnson. He had been walking on a wide gravel path that parallels the railroad tracks and passes behind the diner, which is located on the 1300 block of Croft Avenue off U.S. Highway 2.

Fire District 26 emergency responders were called just before 6 p.m., finding Johnson already dead, his body severely burned.

Employees of the Snohomish County Public Utility District came to shut off power from the 115,000-volt line that evening.

The Snohomish County Medical Examiner later determined Johnson’s cause of death was electrocution and the manner was accidental. The live wire was hanging at head level when he walked into it.

The degraded crossarm had broken, and “caused one of the wires on the circuit to fall near but not all the way to the ground,” said PSE communications director Grant Ringel. Determining the cause took about one month. During that time all crossarms in and around Gold Bar were replaced, he said.

At the same time, power poles and crossarms between Skykomish and the Everett area were being inspected, Ringel said. Any poles or crossarms that staff had concerns about were switched out. Environmental factors and age can cause the wooden equipment to deteriorate, he said.

“We didn’t find any systematic problems,” he said. “There were some (poles and crossarms) that we would have replaced anyway because they might have been more susceptible to storm damage because of their age.”

Ringel said he did not know the last time the crossarm that caused the power line to fall in Gold Bar was checked or replaced. All crossarms are inspected on a regular basis, he said, and the results of the recent investigation will be used in future maintenance procedures.

PSE has not received any notice of legal action against it because of the incident, Ringel said.

“Our sympathies go out to the family, and hopefully this is a good reminder — particularly during storm seasons — to be very vigilant around downed power lines and always assume they are live,” he said.

Devices are installed to shut off power from fallen lines, but that equipment can occasionally fail. It is advised to stay at least 60 feet away from a wire, in case it is still live.