MY FIRST HARD LESSON · Lineman Bull$hit

MY FIRST HARD LESSON

We were using preform wraps as a grip to catch 1 1/4” hardline at an angle and swap in a bundle block. It felt simple enough. Felt routine. Something we all knew how to do. We had 1590 triple bundle hanging. Weight and momentum waiting to punish any mistake. I remember the air feeling thick. Tension in the wire and tension in my gut that I ignored.

The hardline puller dumped into us. All that memory came alive at once. The preform spun clean off. The bundle dropped. It was maybe an inch from the dirt. Maybe two. Close enough that if gravity decided it wanted flesh instead of soil we were going to give it plenty. Then in a way I still do not understand the preform spun back on. It caught. Not gentle. Violent. Fast. It ripped the arm almost off the SWS7 lattice tower.

My best friends were in the crane basket beneath all of it. I did not think. I just dove under my foreman’s rig because I thought I was about to watch people I loved get folded into pieces. I thought I would be picking up body parts. I thought that would be on me forever. I had never felt that kind of fear. Not the kind that comes later when you think about it. The kind that hits in real time. The kind that tastes like metal in your mouth.

The noise stopped. Nothing fell. Everyone was still alive. We stood there quiet. No bravado. No tough guy jokes. We knew how close we came to being done. It was almost nothing. A half second. A half turn. A half inch.

I learned that day that routine kills. Comfort kills. Thinking you have done something enough times to let your brain wander kills. I learned that equipment does not care if you have a family. Wire does not care if you believe in God. The job does not care if it takes you. It only waits for you to stop respecting it.

I have never forgotten that feeling. I do not want to feel it again. I do not want anyone on my crew to feel it either.

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