Friday, March 12, 2010 We were dispatched to an overturned 2 axle commercial truck hauling US mail at 0250 hours, raining hard, poor lighting, on a freeway offramp. The driver was ejected and cargo scattered along railroad frontage. The power pole (property of railroad company) was sheared off, with lines down on and under the vehicle and fuel leak with the ignition in the "on" position. Due to the position of the vehicle and the power lines, responders were unable to make access to the cab, address the fuel leak, disconnect the truck\'s batteries, or perform salvage on the cargo. It took 4 hours to get a lineman from the railroad company out to the incident. Our personnel have always "known" that those old delapidated power lines and poles along the railroad frontage were abandoned and dead. It seemed silly to follow the protocol for downed powerlines, but we did it. We are not sure how we would have managed a safe extrication on the driver, had he remained in the vehicle. The lineman from the railroad company also thought that those lines were dead - until he put a meter on them. We were all surprised to find that each of those 4 bare wires carried 110 volts. We were also very grateful that we observed the protocol for downed power lines.

LESSONS LEARNED: Never trust downed power lines. Follow protocol. Assume that power lines are hot until it can be confirmed otherwise.