Andy Blood's career had only just begun.

By the summer of 2004, he had finished about half his training as an apprentice lineman at Xcel Energy and had found his calling.

"It was right up my alley," he said. "Everything about it was fun. The camaraderie. The brotherhood. It can be backbreaking work, but it can be exciting work."

Blood was an avid rock climber, and toiling on wooden poles to keep electricity surging through power lines was a family affair. His uncle, Robbie, was a lineman for an electric utility in Grand Junction, and his older brother, Casey, had the same job in Pueblo. Another uncle, Neal, was managing an electric provider in Cortez.

He thought he could make a difference, too.

"You can go out in the worst weather, and you're getting people's power back on," he said. "Sometimes, they'll come out and bring you cookies or hot chocolate. It gives you a good feeling."

But an accident three years ago put his life on a drastically different course. It led to the largest jury verdict in Colorado for a case of its kind - a nearly $40 million award against the state's largest corporate name.

The brawny 24-year-old - boasting 18-inch biceps - had hoped to get an education up in the air strapped to wooden poles. Instead, he learned more than he ever wanted to know about the legal and medical fields.

800-pound pole snaps

The graduate of Central High School in Grand Junction had arrived at the corner of West 58th Avenue and Pecos Street. It was June 29, 2004, and Xcel had assigned Blood and others to a pole-relocation project to accommodate a railroad company's expansion.

Electric and telephone utilities often share poles, and in this case, Blood had been working on one in Adams County owned by Denver- based Qwest.

Blood, who had attended a lineman school on the Western Slope, eyed Pole No. 5905. He hammered the wood in different spots, listening closely. Linemen are taught to know the sound of a structurally strong pole.

Satisfied, he moved his way up in an exercise he had practiced more than a thousand times.

After 45 minutes of removing parts of the pole, a mundane task, his routine day ended and panic set in. The 800-pound beam snapped several inches below the earth and began to tip. He frantically tried to unfasten the belt connecting him to the wood.

"I realized, 'My God, this pole is coming over,' " Blood said. "I can remember thinking, 'This is going to kill me.' I remember hearing myself yell, 'Oh, my God!' I remember hearing the wind. 'Whoosh.' "

The pine pole collapsed, sending him 25 feet to the ground and leaving him instantly paralyzed from the waist down. Fellow Xcel workers rushed to his side. But Blood was in dire shape - his femur, pelvis and tailbone broken, two vertebrae shattered. He endured nearly 12 hours of surgery at St. Anthony Central Hospital, as his wife, Carrie, waited anxiously for answers.

"I went from having a perfect life to being a baby again," Blood said. "Starting all over."

Blood vs. Qwest

More than a year later, Blood filed a lawsuit against Qwest, blaming the telecom company for his injuries. Qwest failed to fulfill an obligation to keep its poles safe, his attorneys said.

The pole, put into the ground in 1958, was rotten beneath the surface, and Blood couldn't have detected the decay, the suit claimed.

Blood, who is a paraplegic but still copes with significant pain in his lower body, said he sought a lawyer because workers compensation wouldn't cover his costs. The Bloods quickly had to alter their Henderson house, adding ramps, lifts and hardwood floors, while making the bathroom accessible and widening the doors.

Trying to describe the agony, he said it felt like jumping into a saltwater bath with cuts all over his legs.

At first, the lawsuit was about making sure he had the proper care and the best life possible. As he and his lawyers at Fogel Keating Wagner Polidori and Shafner gathered more information, the motivation changed.

"We wanted to do this for the lineman community," he said.

The lawsuit relied on a 1960 agreement between Xcel subsidiary Public Service Company of Colorado and Qwest predecessor Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph. The contract said each company had a duty to maintain the poles it owns in a "safe and serviceable condition."

Qwest, in turn, sued Xcel, saying the accident was the electric company's fault. Had Xcel properly trained Blood, Qwest said, he wouldn't have been hurt.

Qwest also claimed Xcel should be on the hook for any damages. The telecom company pointed to internal Xcel memos reprimanding workers who had been at the scene and citing them for safety violations. The reports reminded them that poles must be "adequately supported" when they are being stripped and wires are being removed.

Lawsuits are settled every day without the plaintiff and defendant appearing in front of a jury. But efforts to resolve this case failed.

Blood's attorneys demanded $11.9 million. Xcel's final offer was $4 million. Qwest's was $2.8 million, and its insurance company, AIG, would not add money to the mix, Blood's lawyers said.

So Blood, with his wife beside him, headed to court.

During the trial, Qwest employees questioned by Blood's lawyers acknowledged that the company lacked a program to routinely inspect, maintain and repair wooden poles.

Blood's lawyer, Bill Keating, squared off against 30-year Qwest employee Mark Schmidt.

"Qwest has no way of knowing which of its 157,862 poles (in Colorado) are rotten and defective, do they?" Keating asked, according to a transcript.

Schmidt, a manager who oversees engineering and construction staff, replied, "No."

The lawyer kept the pressure on Schmidt.

"As you sit here today, you really have no explanation why Qwest has never developed and implemented" an inspection plan, "do you?" he asked.

Schmidt's answer: "No, I don't."

To be sure, it's an isolated case, and no one could remember another time a rotten pole had collapsed and hurt someone.

But Blood's legal team in Denver asked: How many other wooden poles owned by Qwest in Colorado have deteriorated to a troubling point?

"I think it's a big worry for linemen but also a big worry for the general public," Keating said in a recent telephone interview. "A lot of these poles run adjacent to backyards, along pedestrian walkways and streets."

Eyes of fellow linemen on case

Carrie Blood, who quit her bartending job at an Olive Garden the day of her husband's accident to take care of him full time, said the linemen of Colorado have followed his story closely.

"If it happened to Andy," she said, "every lineman knew it could have happened to them."

Qwest sought to convince the jury that its workers perform thorough examinations of the poles before they climb. That's a practice the company said it depends on to ensure safety.

A Qwest attorney questioned one of the company's employees, pole training manager Ed Dauenhauer, about an extra step taken by linemen. Dauenhauer testified that workers are given instructions to "prod" a pole near the ground with a tool to try to detect decay below the surface in addition to performing other routine checks.

"Would you climb a pole like this 5905 - forget 5905 - would you climb a pole under this description without first doing the prodding inspection, digging down and prodding around the base of the pole?" Robert Zavaglia asked.

Dauenhauer replied, "No, I wouldn't."

Too tired to watch, Blood occasionally left the trial to rest on a bed set up down the hall in another courtroom. Everyday tasks such as showering and getting dressed had become difficult. He had good days and bad.

At other times, however, he listened intently, seated beside the lawyers in his wheelchair.

When Qwest's legal counsel tried to suggest that he and other Xcel linemen could have avoided the accident, he was dying to interrupt. He knew what he had been taught and believed he had adhered to the lessons.

"It was emotional, at times," he said.

Mike Keating, another one of Blood's lawyers, said in an interview that Xcel workers prod only when the initial probe raises a red flag. In this instance, he said, Blood had no reason to worry.

"He did not utilize that test, but it would not have provided him with the information to make a sound judgment anyway," said Mike Keating, the son of the law firm's co-founder.

In the end, the jurors didn't buy Qwest's defense and gave Xcel the benefit of the doubt. In May of this year, they awarded Blood $39.5 million and found that Qwest, not Xcel, was responsible. Of the amount, $18 million is punitive damages.

The largest personal-injury verdict in Colorado until now was $23.2 million awarded to two sisters severely hurt when a train struck their car at a railroad crossing near Longmont, according to Sally Gilbert, who has published the newsletter Jury Verdict Reporter of Colorado since 1983.

The dollar amount in the Blood case is huge. The defendant's profile is, too. Qwest is the largest company in Colorado, by revenue.

Blood's lawyers said the lofty figure should send a message. The law firm declined to reveal the percentage of the award it will receive in fees.

"I would hope that the jury's verdict and Andy's injuries would make it very clear to not only Qwest but the industry in general that they need to be aware of the risks and make sure they have an adequate pole-inspection program," Mike Keating said.

Qwest has not accepted the verdict quietly.

The company has said that while its "sympathies are with Mr. Blood," it plans to appeal.

Spokesman Bob Toevs said Qwest has a strong safety track record and is "currently analyzing our procedures and processes to make sure we are operating as safely as our current record demonstrates."

The legal story does not end there.

Soon after the trial, Blood's attorneys filed a document asking the judge to increase the punitive damages, alleging that Qwest has done nothing to right the wrongs uncovered and has continued "to expose utility line workers, utility companies and citizens of Colorado to the risk of serious property damage, serious injury or death."

Qwest fired back, relying on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a nearly $80 million award against Philip Morris. The company has argued that damages should not be based on harm caused to others but limited to the actual plaintiff.

Qwest lawyers also noted the absence of a state mandate.

"Colorado's legislature has not required Qwest to abandon its reliance on spot checks and pre-climb inspections to identify poles to be replaced," they wrote.

In addition, Qwest has cited Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards that say utility employees should prod a pole.

Qwest, leaning on testimony from the trial, has claimed Xcel workers fail to do this, while it complies.

Safety an 'obligation'

Figuring out who's responsible for what is difficult, as the jurors surely would attest.

Utilities, mostly on the electric side, often hire outside specialists to ensure their wooden poles are in good condition. In one example, publicly traded electric company Aquila, which owns 65,000 poles in Colorado, taps a contractor to check each pole over a certain age once every 10 years.

Intec Services, in Fort Collins, is one company that provides pole-inspection services. All of Intec's clients are electric utilities, but it ends up working on many poles owned by telecom companies, too, wrote manager Andrew Kudick in an e-mail. The electric companies pay Intec and pass on part of the cost to the phone utilities, he said.

"Safety of the public, line workers and property is the number-one reason" Intec is hired, Kudick said. "Attempting to ensure safety is a moral and ethical obligation."

The jurors, given a chance to pose a question, seemed to wonder whether Qwest had shirked its duties to save money. The judge allowed a question asking Schmidt if he would have considered establishing a routine pole-inspection regimen had he been handed a budget.

Schmidt testified he would have implemented such a plan had he been given the money and an order from above.

"Mr. Schmidt, based on what you know, your department was never presented with the budget and was never given the instructions to do so, were they?" Keating followed up.

Schmidt's answer: "Yes, that's true."

A 'family' affair

From day one, when a parade of linemen streamed through the hospital, Xcel workers have been generous with their time and money, said Blood, whose medical costs have soared past the $1 million mark.

Tedd Martindale, a 62-year-old lineman in Golden, explained the outpouring of support this way.

"When somebody gets hurt, it's as intense for us as it would be if a family member got hurt," he said.

Martindale hurried to St. Anthony Central after he received a phone call about the accident. For a senior lineman, it's the worst news you can get.

"We flat filled the place up," he said.

Blood's colleagues hosted a barbecue to raise money for him, and Martindale started an annual golf tournament that generates thousands of extra dollars a year. Friends at Xcel even landscaped Blood's yard.

The next event at Applewood Golf Course is set for September. Martindale said he looks forward to seeing Blood grinning as he drives around in a cart using a putter to push the gas.

The Bloods eventually will see the money from the verdict, assuming it holds up on appeal, but it could take years, as the legal process grinds on.

Blood, now 27, continues to deal with pain, though it's not as bad as it was. His therapy includes using leg braces and a walker to get around for at least an hour a few times a week.

He thinks about working again one day, or going back to school.

Three years after the day everything changed, he has found a new purpose in life. He and his wife want to establish a fund to help workers who are injured or just going through a tough time.

"It'll be pretty cool," he said, "to be on the other end of helping people out."

The details

• What happened: Andy Blood, an apprentice lineman for Xcel, suffered severe injuries after a utility pole he was working on collapsed in 2004. He was instantly paralyzed from the waist down.

• Blood's medical bills during the past three years: More than $1 million

• The lawsuits: Blood sued Qwest, claiming the company failed to maintain, inspect or repair its utility poles, including Pole No. 5905, the one he was on. His attorneys relied on a 1960 agreement between Public Service Company of Colorado and Mountain States Telephone for joint use of the poles. Qwest sued Xcel, saying it failed to train Blood properly on pole inspection.

• The latest development: Blood's attorneys have filed a motion to increase punitive damages, arguing Qwest hasn't moved to right the wrongs, putting workers and the public at risk. Qwest is fighting, citing a U.S. Supreme Court case saying damages must be limited to harm caused to a plaintiff.

By the numbers

$39.5 million was awarded to Andy Blood against Qwest.

$18 million of the award was for punitive damages.

157,862 wooden utility poles are owned by Qwest in Colorado.

patonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2544

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