Abstract: Telephone company employees were preparing to pull a telephone cable through an underground duct between a manhole and an aboveground telephone cable hut. The employees first needed to pull a winch line into the duct. They attached the winch line to a synthetic mule tape, which was already inside the duct, and were pulling it approximately 300 meters from the manhole to the hut. They pulled the mule tape with the power-driven reel on their construction truck and by hand. One of the employees used the unguarded auxiliary extension shaft on a Hogg and Davis, self-loading, self-propelled, cable reel trailer (Model No. 135BHSPBW) as a horizontally oriented capstan winch. As he wound the mule tape onto the turning shaft, his hands and clothing got caught. He was pulled against the shaft and machine before his coworker stopped the machine engine. The injured employee #1 died on the scene.