Staff Reports
At 3:51 p.m. on Monday, May 6, 2019, Gwinnett County Firefighters responded to a call at a cell phone tower site in the 4900 block of West Price Road in Suwanee, Ga. The caller to 9-1-1 reported an injured worker who was suspended more than 100 feet in the air.
Firefighters found the injured man suspended near the top of the tower. The worker was ascending the tower when he became injured and was unable to get himself down. Firefighters were immediately met by a representative at the tower site who advised them that two contract climbers made access to the man, but needed the fire department’s assistance with getting him to the ground.
Rope rescue technicians from the fire department’s Technical Rescue Team quickly assessed the situation and readied a TRT member to scale the tower to reach the victim. Upon gaining access, the worker was found to be conscious, alert and breathing.
The TRT member, along with the contract climbers rigged a rescue harness and belay line to safely lower the man to the ground. The operation was methodical due to the fact that rescuers had to stabilize the worker as they prepared him for the long descent.
It took Gwinnett firefighters two hours to safely bring the man down the tower.
Paramedics transported the man to the hospital for further medical evaluation. He was reportedly part of a third-party contract crew that was doing work on the tower. The Fire-PIO is unable to identify the injured worker due to federal patient privacy laws known as HIPAA.
