ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A UK window cleaner has had an arm amputated after his carbon fibre pole moved too close to an overhead cable.

Jason Knight, 34, was cleaning the windows of a private house when a 33,000-volt current sent him flying seven feet across the customer's back garden.

The self-employed window cleaner from Westbury, Wiltshire, was airlifted to hospital where a scan revealed that the shock had narrowly missed his heart. Doctors were forced to amputate his left arm and five of his toes which had been severely burned.

Knight was packing up his equipment when his carbon fibre pole came close to one of the powerlines, catapulting him through the air.

"The next thing I remember is waking up on the other side of the lawn, metres away from where I had been cleaning," he said. "I was very dazed and dizzy and I just had to wait for someone to come and find me."

Neither the owner of the house nor Knight had been aware that the electricity lines -owned and operated by Scottish and Southern Electricity - were so powerful and there were no obvious warning signs around the property.

The Health and Safety Executive has issued a preliminary report stating that the power cables are "above the minimum safe height from the ground and beyond the minimum safe distance from the conservatory", and that there is no requirement for them to be insulated in this setting.

However, HSE website guidance states that voltages lower than 230 volts can kill and injure people and that flashovers - where electricity jumps a short distance between an overhead line and a nearby object - can occur either when a cable has not been insulated or when insulation has been compromised by water or other substances.