Sask. man shares safety lessons after near-fatal electrocution

Curtis Weber doesn’t want anyone to make the same mistake he did.

He spoke at Canada’s Farm Progress Show in Regina, sharing his story of a near-fatal incident while working on a Saskatchewan farm in the summer of 1999 when he was 17.

It was his third day on the job working as a labourer as he and his co-workers were attempting to move a steel hopper under an overhead power line with a crane.

They planned to be home early on the Friday of the Canada Day long weekend but were running behind after the previous job took longer than expected.

“That’s when complacency started to set in and we started rushing even more and we started to pick up the pace because of the hours that we lost,” Weber recalled.

He said although they identified the risk with the power line, they didn’t properly address the hazard amid the rushed frustration of that day.

Weber was spending his last summer at home before planning to move away to play junior A hockey. His life changed when the crane struck the power line as Weber, who was holding onto the hopper, acted as the connecting point to the ground.

“I go to bed one (night) excited about going to play hockey in Alberta and the next, I don’t remember waking up for eight weeks,” said Weber.

Weber took three separate cycles of 14,400 volts, suffering third- and fourth-degree burns to 60 per cent of his body. He spent six weeks in a coma and a total of six months in hospital in Saskatoon.

Amid the 30 operations that followed, he lost his right arm just below the elbow and his left leg just below the knee.

His recovery lasted another six years, as he travelled to Toronto for another 15 reconstructive and plastic surgeries.

Weber now works as a public speaker, sharing the valuable lessons he learned and the importance of taking the proper safety precautions on the job.

One of his big lessons is to speak up when you know unsafe decisions are being made. Weber said he knew the risks because he was raised in the industry, building bins with his father when he was young but didn’t say anything that day.

“The way the day’s events unfolded for us had a lot to do with me not speaking up because I didn’t want to take any more time out of the day,” said Weber.

In the two decades since the accident, Weber said he believes a lot of progress has been made in workplace safety. He believes there is more awareness but the practice isn’t always there, especially within the agriculture industry.

Farms are mostly family run and Weber speaks at events like the Farm Progress Show to help bring his safety message to the dinner table.

“I think that when we’re in that environment and we don’t necessarily have to worry about somebody coming in and doing safety checks or regulating us, it’s easy for us to take those shortcuts,” said Weber.

Incidents when farming equipment hit a power line or power pole are on the rise in Saskatchewan. There were 312 incidents in 2018, and already 184 incidents so far in 2019. In 2009 there were only 143 incidents.

Weber said he never let his accident affect him, never dealing with depression or feelings of anger. While he didn’t initially think about becoming a public speaker, he took the opportunity as he matured and started a family.

“Maybe there’s a reason that I dealt with things so well and I went through the experience the way that I did in order to use the messages to inspire and influence other people to maybe change the way they perceive safety,” he said.