Got a text from a tower hand friend of mine yesterday telling me that so and so died yesterday(name omitted on purpose). I said, "What???" and he said that they were working a tower and it collapsed killing him instantly. Upon checking on the wireless website, kind of like AWS, I read that indeed there was an accident in Blaine, KS yesterday. Don't know any details other than they were doing a decom on a guy tower and something happened with the ginpole and it all came down like a house of cards. I worked with the one guy for about a week, seemed like a nice guy and worked with the other guy for about a month and he was a good guy.
I spent a lot of time last year and the beginning of this year climbing those things and been up pretty high. Walking across the driveway today I was thinking about those two guys and suddenly my mind was swirling, I'm falling, tower chasing me and all I could think of was those two friends and dear God what would you think? Stopped me in my tracks. I have been up to the height where these guys fell from and "safety" connected to the tower. Just really hit me today. I guess it's because in the past I see faceless names, Joe Joe died in Somewhere, USA today when he fell off a tower, read it and move on. This is different, I have faces I can picture, conversations and just hanging out on the job with these two guys even as short as it may have been.
Be careful out there ladies and gents, a blink of an eye and it's all over.
http://www.wirelessestimator.com/breaking_news.cfm