Federal LODD death Report

A federal report says the lack of fire department guidelines contributed to the accident that killed a fire captain.

http://www.wnep.com/wnep-scr-federal-report-critical-firefighting,0,7920073.story

Scranton Fire Captain James Robeson was electrocuted in January, 2008 when the bucket truck he was in came close to some high-voltage power lines.
A new federal report is now out and it criticizes the fire department and how it handled that fire.

The federal report listed six factors to the cause of Captain James Robeson's death, among those lack of training and procedures for fighting fires so close to power lines.
Fire crews were called to a home on Ash Street that went up in flames that day in January, 2008. A man and his wife died in that fire. Captain Robeson died fighting that fire.
The National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health investigated. Federal investigators reported that among other things, incident command was suboptimal. There were no standard operating procedures or specific training for that type of fire fight and there was a lack of verification over whether there was power in the line.
"Everything that was in that report was discussed with the city years before that incident happened last January. It's hard to take. It really is hard to take. Our guys work real hard. They do a lot of research," said Lieutenant Dave Gervasi, vice president of the Scranton firefighters union.
He said ever since Captain Robeson was killed, firefighters have taken their own steps to a safer workplace.
"So we've all been really watching each other's backs at this point. There's a lot of people within our structure that have stopped towers from going up before we knew things were off. This has happened four or five times since that happened. We're doing all we can. The city needs to implement the proper structure," Gervasi added.
Mayor Chris Doherty said the city was waiting for the federal report's recommendations to develop and enforce guidelines for all fire fights, especially those near powerlines, to ensure a safety officer is present and to consider all power lines live.
"You look at how you can make things better so you can prevent something like this from happening in the future and we will hope to implement all of the recommendations that they will give to us," Doherty said.
An attorney representing Captain Robeson's family said Robeson was a highly trained and decorated firefighter.