Harry Oates left his parents’ home in Cumbria just before noon on Oct. 27, 2023, heading out for a training run along a public footpath near Lupton. He was 29, an aerospace engineer based in Bristol, and preparing for a charity half-marathon to mark his upcoming 30th birthday.
He never came back.
When Oates failed to return after roughly two hours, his parents assumed he had stopped to talk with friends who lived along his route. “So we thought maybe he’s bumped into somebody and stopped for a chat,” his father, Malcolm Oates, told The Independent.
But as the afternoon wore on and calls went unanswered, concern grew. His phone was still ringing. Malcolm Oates later used the “Find My iPhone” app to track its location to a field about a 10-minute walk from their home. He and Harry’s brother, Charlie, drove there.
“As I got closer and closer, it started to dawn on me that it was Harry lying prone on the floor, face down,” Malcolm Oates said. “And as I got closer and closer, I could see there was an 11,000-volt cable across him.”
“That image of him there is the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up,” he said.
What the Inquest Found
An inquest later found that Harry Oates had come into contact with a low-hanging 11 kilovolt electricity conductor and was killed instantly at about 2:07 p.m. His death was confirmed at 6:35 p.m.
The cable, managed by Electricity North West Limited (ENWL), had fallen from its usual height of more than eight meters two days earlier, on Oct. 25. Because it did not touch the ground, it remained live.
No one reported it.
Senior Coroner Kirsty Gomersal concluded that Oates died as a result of a “rare and complex sequence of events.” In a Prevention of Future Deaths report issued in December 2025, she wrote: “At the time, there was no automatic means of detection of the low hanging line.”
The investigation found that two porcelain tension disc insulators failed simultaneously, releasing the conductor. The failures were traced to voids in the cement inside the insulators, a manufacturing defect that had gone undetected. ENWL tested about 260 insulators across its network and found that 73 percent contained similar voids.
Although insulator failures were known in the industry, a double failure of this type had not previously been recorded, the inquest heard.
Industry Response and Safety Changes
The coroner warned that while the chain of events was unusual, the risk has not been eliminated. She sent her report to the Energy Networks Association, the industry’s trade body, stating that action should be taken to reduce the chance of future deaths.
ENWL said it has stopped using the type of porcelain insulator involved and plans to replace them at around 8,000 locations across its network. The company now carries out patrols within 48 hours when certain electrical faults are detected, something that was not required before Oates’ death. It has also installed a detection system known as Linesight across much of its network, which can identify low-hanging lines and signs of internal insulator stress.
“Our heartfelt sympathies remain with Harry Oates’ family at this time,” an ENWL spokesperson said. “This was a tragic incident which both the coroner and Health and Safety Executive noted involved a rare and complex sequence of events that were unforeseeable.”
The Health and Safety Executive said its investigation found “no material breach of law.”
A Family Calling for Broader Action
For Malcolm Oates, that conclusion is not enough. He has called for a mandatory national program to replace all porcelain disc insulators of the type involved.
“There should be a programme in place now where every single porcelain disc insulator should be removed and replaced,” he told The Independent. “It could happen tomorrow. It could be happening right now.”
The coroner’s report noted that similar combinations of equipment exist elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The industry had historically relied on members of the public to report low-hanging lines. In this case, the cable remained live and suspended for two days without detection.
Harry Oates, born in Kendal, was remembered by his family as kind and ambitious. He had set himself a goal of visiting 30 countries before turning 30 and had already exceeded that number. Former colleagues later named a boardroom in his honor.
He did not reach his 30th birthday.
