Abstract: An electric utility was improving five service drops on a class 5 utility pole. As part of this project, a 47-year-old power line worker was connecting one of the service drops to a tail he had prepared. He had installed two of the conductors onto the tail with compression-type tap connectors and had put the third connector on the tail before installing the service conductor. (None of the three connectors was insulated.) As the employee repositioned himself on the pole to pick up the service conductor, he might have contacted one of the connectors and received an electric shock. The employee died either from electrocution or from a heart attack. (The medical examiner had not ruled on cause of death at the time the form was prepared, but the preliminary autopsy reported that the employee had a severely diseased heart.)