BILOXI, Miss. — Accidents in the tower industry don’t always have happy endings, but creative thinking and good training helped a tower worker in Mississippi return safely to the ground.
According to WLOX(TV), an unnamed tower tech was performing maintenance on a radio tower owned by Alpha Media when the hydraulic crane ceased functioning, leaving him stuck 140 feet above ground for about three hours.
[Review NATE’s Safe to Climb protocol here.]
Fortunately, the tower was located behind the WLOX studios, and the TV crew used its news drone to deliver lines that enabled the tech to rappel down, according to the article.
Watch a video of his descent on the WLOX website.
NATE and other tower safety advocates will be happy to hear that the tower worker said he had practiced rappeling in training sessions prior to the event.
The Alpha Media Gulfport-Biloxi cluster consists of WQBB(FM), WXYK(FM), WCPR(FM), WTNI(AM), WXBD(AM) and WGBL(FM).
