Abstract: An employee was using an aerial lift to pull a wooden light pole from the ground. He was working from the bucket of the aerial lift. The rope being used as a load line broke, and the employee was thrown from the bucket. He fell about 15 meters to the ground. He died of his injuries.

Abstract: A power line worker was replacing a service at a house. After he completed this task, he volunteered to remove the old utility pole. (His work order did not include this task.) He attached a rope to his aerial lift and to the pole. As he was lifting the rope, it broke; and the employee fell out of the aerial lift, landing on the back of the aerial lift truck. He died of injuries sustained in the fall. A safety belt and lanyard was attached to the aerial lift bucket, but the employee apparently either did not use it or fell out of it.

Abstract: Two employees of an electric utility arrived at a high school where a tree had split and had fallen across an overhead power line. The employees had been assigned to remove the portion of the tree that was across the power line. One of the employees, a power line worker, entered the bucket of an articulating-boom aerial lift mounted on a 1986 Chevrolet truck. The aerial lift was equipped with a winch and a 0.44-inch-diameter nylon rope. The power line worker ascended in the aerial lift and attached the rope to the tree section so that it could be pulled from the power line. As the crew attempted to remove the tree section, the nylon rope failed, catapulting the power line worker out of the aerial lift bucket to the ground-a distance of about 40 feet. (A body belt and lanyard had been provided, but the employee was not using them.) He died of injuries he sustained in the fall.