Worker Hurt in High-Voltage Accident in Laguna
A worker installing a traffic signal Thursday in Laguna Beach was jolted when a pole he was using to guide the signal into place touched a 12,000-volt power line, police said.
Ron Brower, 54, of Irvine, “just dropped to the ground” as the wire exploded above him, said Michael Picone, who was visiting from Las Vegas and saw the accident and called for help from his cell phone.
Picone’s girlfriend, Julie Ross, an intensive care nurse in Las Vegas, gave Brower cardiopulmonary resuscitation before paramedics arrived.
“He wasn’t breathing; there was no pulse,” she said. “And then he woke up.”
Brower was in fair condition late Thursday at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, where he was treated for second-degree burns to his foot and hands, said hospital spokeswoman Karen Prestia.
The accident knocked out power and telephone service for 30 minutes and stopped traffic on Coast Highway.
Brower, an employee at Moore Electrical Contracting Inc. in Corona, was using a pole to guide the traffic signal into place at the corner of Cleo Street and Coast Highway when the pole struck a live wire.
“The pole acted as a conduit and the current knocked him unconscious,” said Laguna Beach Lt. Danell Adams.
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