Modesto worker was electrocuted, coroner and Cal/OSHA confirm

The state department investigating the on-the-job death Monday of a city of Modesto worker has said Tyrone Hairston was electrocuted. The Stanislaus County Coroner's Office confirmed that cause of death.

Hairston, a six-year city employee, was killed while working on streetlight maintenance at Floyd and Roselle avenues late in the morning.

The state's Division of Occupational Safety and Health, better known as Cal/OSHA is inspecting, "and more information on the cause of the incident will be available when the inspection is closed," said Frank Polizzi, a spokesman for the state Department of Industrial Relations. "Cal/OSHA has six months to issue citations for any violations of workplace safety and health regulations."

The city will conduct an internal investigation to review its own safety protocols and to determine whether additional safety precautions will prevent such an incident from happening again, spokesman Thomas Reeves said. "We won’t know what went wrong until the investigations are complete."

To the knowledge of Modesto's human resources department and city manager’s office, Hairston's is the city's first accidental workplace death, Reeves said.

Hairston, 30, was an electrician assistant 1. He originally was hired part time as a maintenance aide in traffic operations from 2007 to 2009, Reeves said, and rehired in 2014 full time as a maintenance worker 1 in the Solid Waste Management Division.

This story was originally published April 10, 2018 at 11:37 AM with the headline "Modesto worker was electrocuted, coroner and Cal/OSHA confirm."