National Grid worker is electrocuted
A 35-year- old electrical worker died after being electrocuted at a Medford work site.
“With great sadness we can confirm that early this morning a National Grid electric employee died after sustaining injuries on the job while working in Medford,” the unidentified man’s employer, National Grid, an electric utility company, wrote in a statement.
“Our immediate priority is ensuring we are doing everything we can to support this employee’s family and colleagues. We therefore will not be sharing any additional information at this time,” the company added.
The man was working alone in an electrical box at the end of a parking lot at a work site on Salem Street when he was electrocuted at about 12:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, which is investigating the death. The electrocution was reported by a Medford Police officer assigned to work detail there.
Medford firefighters and EMS attempted to save the man’s life at the scene but he was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital and pronounced dead.
Three Medford Police officers were treated and released from a hospital for smoke inhalation, but the information available does not explain the connection of the death and these injuries.
It is the first fatal workplace electrocution death since Joel Boulay was killed when he made contact with live electrical wires while trimming trees in Northboro on Sept. 8, 2021, according to MASSCOSH — or the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, a workplace safety activist organization.
The group also said that two driveway paving workers were seriously injured when their truck touched live wires in Burlington on May 17.
Workplace safety has made headlines in Boston this year, starting in late March when Peter Monsini, a demolition worker, died when part of a floor gave way March 26 at the Government Center Garage demolition site downtown. Just earlier this month, three workers were rescued — one barely escaping with serious injuries — from a partial building collapse at the old South Boston Edison plant on May 4.
In 2021, 62 workers lost their lives on the job, according to a MASSCOSH report.