Photo courtesy of Mel Coleman
Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of one of the Twin Lakes Area’s most tragic accidents. It was Aug. 31, 2004, when four employees of North Arkansas Electric Cooperative were injured in an explosion at the Baxter substation, and three would later succumb to their injuries.
Desi Jones, Ivey Hodge, Jessie Zimmer and Chris Hickman were at the substation north of Mountain Home. The employees were moving a regulator – a piece of equipment that regulates voltage – when it exploded. All four were transported to the former St. John’s Regional Health Center, currently known as Mercy Hospital, in Springfield. Jones was pronounced dead the next day, Hodge died two days after the explosion, and Zimmer succumbed to his injuries nearly two weeks later. Hickman was the lone survivor of the explosion.
Following an investigation, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) originally cited the cooperative for failing to read and follow the regulator maker’s manual, failing to make sure all equipment and lines were de-energized before moving the regulator and failing to properly train two of the employees to perform the task. OSHA was set to fine NAEC $4,900 for each violation for a total of $14,700. The two sides would later come to a settlement in which OSHA would drop the first two citations and reclassify the third from “serious” to “other than serious.” The cooperative ended up paying the $4,900 fine for the remaining citation.
Following the tragedy, a statue was placed at the NAEC headquarters in Salem as a memorial to Jones, Hodge and Zimmer, and replicas can also be seen at the offices in Mountain Home and Ash Flat. The cooperative is encouraging area residents to visit any of the statues in honor of Jones, Hodge, Zimmer and five others who died on the job.
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