JOHNSTOWN, PA - One person has died and two others are in the hospital after an electrocution in Johnstown Thursday morning.
According to Cambria County Coroner, Jeff Lees construction crews were repairing the sewer system on DuPont Street when the incident occurred.
He said that shorty before 10:30 a.m., a machine the workers were using touched high-tension lines that were carrying 23,000 volts of electricity.
Lees said the electricity went down in the machine and electrocuted one worker and shocked two others.
All three were taken to Conemaugh Memorial Hospital, and one worker died in the Emergency Department.
According to Johnstown Fire Chief Tony Kovacic, 300 people in the Moxham area will be without power as a result of the accident.
A timetable for when power will return to those customers is not known.
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Johnstown, PA
One man is dead and two others were injured at a construction site in the Moxham section of Johnstown, PA on Thursday, authorities said.
The three workers were part of a crew working on a Johnstown Redevelopment Authority sewer project.
"Shortly before 10:30 a.m. at the intersection of Dupont Street and Coleman Avenue, a construction team was working on the sewer system," Cambria County Coroner Jeffrey Lees said at the scene.
Workers were inserting a liner underground, he said.
"They were feeding the liner through the system when a machine they were using touched high-tension lines carrying 23,000 volts of electricity," Lees said.
Three workers were electrocuted and one of them died in the emergency department at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center, he said.
The names have not been released.
Lees said victim was a 30-year-old man from the Butler area.
An autopsy will be performed on Friday, he said.
Penelec was on scene to cut power at the site. About 330 residences were without power in Moxham.
"We decided cutting the power at this point would be safer," city fire Chief Anthony Kovacic said.
The Johnstown Redevelopment Authority is under a consent agreement with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to reduce flows to the Dornick Point Sewage Treatment Plant by Dec. 31, 2022, or face the possibility of large fines for all flows that go above the rate of 625 gallons per day per equivalent dwelling unit.
The Johnstown Redevelopment Authority is replacing all the lines in its system.
The coroner's office, city police and fire department are investigating the accident.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is being notified.