A Tennessee roofing contractor is dead and two others injured following an accident with an electrical hazard on July 11 at a home in Wilson County.
According to information from a GoFundMe campaign started by Austermiller Roofing Company, the accident occurred when a laddervator fell and hit a power line. This resulted in one of the crew members, identified by ABC-affiliated WKRN as Enoc Hernandez, to die at the scene. Two other workers were injured.
Austermiller Roofing states the crew worked for them as subcontractors. The roofing company started a GoFundMe campaign to support medical expenses of the injured workers and the family of Hernandez.
“Over the years this crew has formed strong relationships with many of our Austermiller team members which made them more than just a subcontractor, they were family,” the GoFundMe page states.
WKRN notes that Hernandez also worked as an usher in the local church, Una Esperanza Vive Nashville.
“Construction workers, especially the roofing people, they know that there is a high possibility that they might fall and hurt themselves. I don’t think he was going to die or he was prepared to die that day,” Isaac Gomez of Una Esperanza Vive Nashville told WKRN.
In addition to the Austermiller Roofing campaign, Tim Leeper Roofing started a GoFundMe to contribute to the victims, and will match the first $2,500 given.
There were 126 electrical fatalities in 2020, according to a report from the Electrical Safety Foundation International. Contact with/exposure to electric current accounted for 2.6% of all fatalities in 2020. The construction industry had the second highest rate of fatal electrical injuries out of all others at 0.6 per 100,000 workers. Hispanic or Latino workers accounted for 40% of electrical fatalities, a 24% increase over 2019.