Greenhithe sudden death: Neighbours saw victim’s body lying on ground after crane touched overhead power lines

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Police cordon on Tauhnu Road in Greenhithe. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

A woman has described seeing paramedics performing CPR on a person who died after a raised crane touched power lines at a North Shore worksite.

Another neighbour saw the victim’s body covered by a sheet moments after the accident yesterday afternoon.

Emergency services rushed to Tauhinu Rd in Greenhithe at 3.23pm.

Flowers had today been placed beneath a security fence at the worksite as WorkSafe confirmed it had begun initial enquiries into the death.

“One of the police officers asked us not to look at the site,” one neighbour said.

“He said there’s a dead body over there. I didn’t see anything because I didn’t want to see anything.”

Another neighbour said she saw the victim lying on the ground after the accident, covered by a sheet, after the crane hit the overhead lines.

“He’s hit the power line above the building site, but then they came and picked up the body and took him away.”

A third said she saw emergency services attempting to frantically apply CPR to the victim.

One resident further along from the accident site said the crane operators had been struggling to lift objects from the back of the truck all week.

“The truck was on a steep angle in the driveway, and the crane operator had three packets of timber, was struggling to lift one and was trying to reach as far as he could,” he said.

“Obviously, the crane went too high.”

He believed more safeguards should have been in place due to contractors working “in such proximity to power lines”.

Several neighbours were forced to park in adjacent streets and have police walk them through to their houses after the accident.

Police and road workers closed off a section of Tauhinu Rd between State Highway 1B and Pounamu Ave.

Some of them lost power for three to four hours.

In a statement, Vector said: “At 3.35pm yesterday, we were notified of an incident involving a member of the public on Tauhinu Rd in Greenhithe. We switched off power in the immediate area to assist the emergency response, and it was restored just before 7.30pm last night.”

WorkSafe has been notified and is making initial enquiries. They noted it was not an investigation at this stage.

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