On July 29th, 1999, a seventeen year old Curtis Weber was working on his third day of a new job, as a labourer on a construction site in Saskatchewan, Canada. He was to spend one last Summer at home following his graduation, before moving away from home to play Jr A hockey. Instead, he quickly found himself in a battle for his life, after a near fatal workplace incident nearly ended his young, promising life.

After a long and trying day for Curtis and his co-workers, they found themselves much further behind in the progress they were hoping for that day, and felt some pressure to pick up the pace. The next task they faced, proved to be the last one they would attempt that day. Curtis and his crew were attempting to transport a steel structure under an overhead power line with a crane. Prior to the maneuver they had a brief discussion around how they would complete the task along with the associated risks. “But we had a job to get done. We were already behind. We identified the hazard. We assessed the risk. What more could we have done?”

Without a documented plan, a discussion around who was going to do what, when and where, they attempted their task, like so many other times they had, like so many others have before them.

Curtis grabbed hold of the steel structure, steadying it from the wind as they approached the overhead line. Then the predictable happened. The preventable happened. Curtis became the ground point as over 40,000 volts of electricity surged through his young body. His body engulfed in a large ball of fire, thrown violently back and forth 4-5 feet off the ground as each of the 3 cycles of 14,400kv passed through the young tens body accounts one of his co-workers. Curtis lye motionless, unresponsive and not breathing. After several attempts to revive him on site, he was rushed to the hospital where upon his arrival, doctors gave his family no hope for survival. But Curtis wasn’t done fighting. It’s as if his purpose in life had not been realized, he was needed for a greater good.

Let Curtis share his emotional journey, and those of his Family/Co-workers, while inspirng change at your workplace, conference, or event and tell you how and why he was lucky that day.