Apparently, the worker was from Iowa, as it was on our local news tonight.
Here is a link to another one that was here in Iowa a few years ago; three guys tethered together using a pulley system to hoist themselves...the rope got caught on the tower...and broke. All of them went down, including I believe, the owner of the company who was 57. That story made me sick to my stomach for weeks.
http://www.kcci.com/news/9419016/detail.html
We have a lot of high-wire workers here because of the wind turbines...I can remember at least two others that have fallen in the last few months...one just a couple of weeks ago.
According to a farmer I talked to, the blades get hit by lightning and have to be repaired. The skin is fiberglass and the guy goes up on a rope sling that is stabilized by two others with ropes. It takes two trips. one to do the fiberglassing, another to sand it down after it sets.
Those must be the new "green" jobs.