‘I really do love my job:’ Lineman killed in accident loved helping others

GRIFFIN, Ga. — Lineman Eric Weems was killed on the job earlier this week when crews suffered an “equipment failure” in downtown Griffin.

Back in October 2020, the City of Griffin posted a video on social media of Weems sharing why he loves being a lineman in his own words.

“I really do love my job. I get to go out and do what I love,” Weems told a cameraperson. “And to be able to help others...you can’t beat it.”

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He goes on to describe what it’s like to be a lineman: hard days of dangerous work. But that he wouldn’t change it.

“You couldn’t buy that feeling,” Weems says of the moment he’s able to get the lights back on in someone’s home.

Weems even likened himself to a detective solving a murder.

“It’s like a detective trying to figure out the murder, and the murder is the electricity. [You’re] trying to figure out what it did to get to this point,” he said.

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Because the work is so dangerous, he says that you have to remind yourself to take extra precautions “every time you get in the bucket.”

“That’s probably the only way to keep injuries and deaths down,” he said. “I don’t want to say death, but that’s what it is.”

A second lineman, Trent Granger, was also critically injured in the accident. There are no updates on his condition.

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