August 26, 2007
Oregon

A giant wind turbine tower collapsed killing a worker, injuring another

www.liveleak.com 26 August 2007

One man was killed and another injured when a wind turbine’s support column snapped and crashed to the ground in Sherman County.

Sherman County Police said today that the collapse occurred at about 4 p.m. Saturday at a wind farm in the rural county west of The Dalles.
The steel tube supporting of the turbine, which wasn’t operable, broke about half way up.

Many industrial turbines at wind farms in the Northwest can stretch to nearly 400 feet tall.

Police said a cause of the collapse was not known. Officials from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were investigating.

“It was a fully erected wind turbine, but it hadn’t been in operation, and the people working on it were maintenance technicians,” Police said.

Police are not releasing the names of the two men only that the man who died was from Goldendale, Wash., and was on the top of the turbine when it collapsed.

The other man was from Minnesota and was trapped in the support column after the collapse.
The injured man was taken to The Dalles Medical Center, but no information about his condition was available.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/08/26/a-giant-wind-turbine-tower-collapsed-killing-a-worker-injuring-another/