On Jun 14, 2:23*pm, dpb wrote:

I'd think any lineman who treats a downed power line as "dead" will end up
that way himself.

It has indeed happened, not always from downed lines but supposedly
isolated lines. * Our local REC had a lineman burned severely and very
lucky he wasn't killed by such an incident where the generator was put
onto the line _during_ the time they were working on a feeder that was
physically disconnected from the line source but a secondary transformer
was on the other side.
.
The 'downed' line was used more as figure of speech! And, while some
truth in that, hard working lines people working extra long hours
under storm or other conditions, dealing with broken off wires etc.;
maybe staff brought in from other assisting power companies, to
restore power, deserve better consideration.
Ever since the 1950s while I worked for a telecomm. company that
shared poles with power lines there have been some accidents and
FATALITIES.
Usually involving power company linemen!
Since the availaibility of emergency generators at prices affordable
to many home owners the risk of back feeding tfrom a house service by
an improperly connected generator through distribution transformer
back to primary 13 or 22 kilovolts has existed.
It behoves us to 'do it right'!