Three of the four injured workers have been released from the hospital.
By Mark LaFlamme
Staff Writer

AUBURN – Most electric chairs used to put convicted criminals to death carry about 2,000 volts of electricity. Four men who were jolted by an overhead power line on Monday were exposed to nearly four times as much voltage.

Yet three of those men were released Tuesday from a Lewiston hospital. A fourth victim remained in good condition at Central Maine Medical Center.

Investigators said the four men were zapped when a motorized ladder they were carrying fell into a 7,200 volt power line at 23 Cleveland Ave. The resulting shock was enough to knock the men off their feet, yet their injuries were not considered life threatening.

Donald Owens, 36, was still being treated for burns and possible internal injuries after the Monday morning incident.

Roger Gagnon, 44, Ricky Goyette, 30, and Robert Rice, 36, were back home Tuesday after they were treated for similar injuries.

The victims contacted by the Sun Journal on Tuesday did not want to talk about their experience. Witnesses and investigators suggested the four men were “lucky to be alive” after the mishap.

Experts say the amount of resistance a body has to electricity ranges from person to person. The path of the current through the body also affects how much damage it does.

The four Lessard Roofing employees were part of a crew at the Auburn site when they were jolted. A hoist ladder they were carrying touched a power line, police said. Electricity shot through the ladder and the men on its way to the ground.

Earlier in the month, a similar incident had fatal consequences when a 20-year Topsham house painter was killed by the same voltage of electricity.

On July 2, two painters were carrying a 40-foot aluminum ladder while working at an Elm Street home. The ladder touched a power line, sending 7,200 volts through the ladder and into the bodies of the men carrying it.

Andrew McMillan of Topsham, died later that day at Parkview Hospital in Brunswick. His co-worker survived the jolt.

On Tuesday, the incident that injured Goyette, Gagnon, Rice and Owen remained under investigation. A supervisor at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it would likely be at least a week before they complete their probe.

Central Maine Power Co. officials were also investigating the incident. Officials said power lines at the work site were not covered by protective sheaths at the time of the accident. The sheaths are provided by CMP on request.

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CMP power facts

• Ninety percent of outside power lines are not insulated. The lines that are insulated are exposed to the rigors of Maine weather, so you never know what condition the insulation is in. No line is safe to touch.

• Voltage is the pressure that pushes electricity along, like water though a hose.

• Amperage, the amount of electricity in any given spot, is what will hurt or kill you. It takes less than one quarter of one amp to put a heart into ventricular fibrillation or irregular beating. Most residents have at least 100-amp service coming into their house; many residents have 200-amp service.

• Electricity travels at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles a second.

• Birds can sit on power lines, and squirrels can run along them without getting hurt – but only so long as they don’t touch anything else that would let the electricity travel from the wire through them to the ground.

-From Central Maine Power Co. Web site: http://www.cmpco.com/