Abstract: At approximately 10:55 a.m. on September 1, 1992, Employee #1 was preparing to cut a service door in a sign to replace burned-out light bulbs. The sign was approximately 40 feet above the ground in a shopping center. Employee #1, who was on the platform of a Sponce aerial ladder, model IH-55 called to another employee on the ground for a hammer. The wire rope that extended the upper section of the ladder broke, and the upper section and the platform that Employee #1 was standing on retracted into the second section. The platform was pulled from under Employee #1 at about 31 feet in the air. Employee #1 fell to the ground, hit his head, and died.