[W5SFA] Tower Safety-Caution to be aware.

[Gary Baldwin]

One Dead, One Injured in New Hampshire Ham Radio Tower Mishap

A tower dismantling turned tragic on Saturday, July 27, in Deerfield, 
New Hampshire, when two radio amateurs working some 40 feet up on the 
tower were carried to the ground when the structure collapsed. Joseph 
Areyzaga, K1JGA, 52, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, did not survive 
injuries sustained in the fall, while the tower's owner, Michael 
Rancourt, K1EEE, 65, was seriously injured and remains

*Joseph Areyzaga, K1JGA.*

hospitalized. Rancourt was taking down the tower in preparation for 
selling his house, and the pair had nearly completed their work. They 
were tied into the tower and went down with it as it collapsed.

The tower, a tilt-over model said to be 40 to 50 feet, had been bolted 
to prevent it from tilting as it was being dismantled.

A law enforcement source said a number of people were at the site for a 
social gathering as the tower was being taken down, and they witnessed 
the tragedy.

No official determination has been made regarding the cause of the 
structural failure, but a radio amateur who visited the scene afterward 
observed that two of the tower's three legs were clearly compromised and 
split cleanly and the third leg bent, just above the fully intact tilt base.

The New Hampshire Amateur Radio tower-related fatality is the second 
such deadly incident in a little more than 6 weeks. In mid-June, a 
Pennsylvania radio amateur died when the tower he was installing 
collapsed as he was attempting to attach a guy line to the structure's 
bottom section.
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