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Tales From The Road
Central Texas television crew
One night during the high school football playoffs a photographer was returning back to the news station after shooting highlights for the evening newscast several hours away.
Trying to beat the competition by getting game highlights on the airwaves first, the photographer stopped on a tall hill about an hour from the station. From the top of the hill the photographer knew he could establish a clear line for a microwave signal and feed the video back to the station. He had used this technique for years.
Overhead power lines are without a doubt the deadliest danger microwave truck operators face. This point is constantly drilled into them to make sure they are not under power lines when raising a microwave mast.
At this spot there was a major powerline transmission network overhead, but the lines, under normal circumstances were well beyond reach of the truck's mast. What the driver didn't know was that from time to time slack was put into the lines for maintenance work. In other words the lines were much closer to the ground than under normal circumstances.
Because the photographer was in a hurry and had fed a signal off this hill at least a hundred times, he didn't bother to look overhead. In fact he was already in the truck preparing to feed the video back to the station when the mast made contact with a major power transmission line.
As equipment in the truck started exploding the driver knew enough to stay in the vehicle. The college intern who was along for the ride however did not. He jumped out of the truck and luckily cleared the vehicle without grounding himself. The driver remained in the vehicle until emergency personnel arrived.
The truck and all of its electronic equipment were destroyed. The electrical energy was so great it melted the tires on the heavy-duty van all the way down to the rims. In fact, the rims were so hot they melted the asphalt and sunk the van's rims four inches into the roadbed.
Fortunately no one was injured.
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