The rigger who plunged to his death from a microwave tower near Dawson in October 2001 had enough alcohol in his system to be given a 24-hour roadside suspension if he'd been driving a vehicle.

Stuart James Brownie, 28, had a blood alcohol level of .05 just under the legal driving limit of .08 and enough to have contributed to his death, the Yukon's chief coroner said in a report released Monday.

An investigation showed Brownie had been drinking in the hours before his death, wrote coroner Sharon Hanley.

She's recommending Brownie's employer adopt a zero tolerance policy to its employees working while they have booze in their bloodstreams.

Currently, Vancouver-based Westower Communications has a policy that prevents workers with blood alcohol levels of more than .04 from working.

In impaired driving cases, police officers start issuing 24-hour suspensions when a person's blood alcohol level hits .05. Roadside screening devices are set to start registering warnings at the .05 level.

The difference in blood alcohol levels and the level of alcohol in his urine determined through toxicology testing 'are consistent with the deceased having stopped drinking approximately four hours before his death and having consumed at least six ounces of alcohol,' the coroner's report says.

Hanley classed Brownie's death as accidental, and that he died from multiple injuries from his 69-metre (230- foot) fall. Recent alcohol consumption is listed as a significant medical cause contributing to death.

Brownie, an Abbotsford man, was in the Yukon working for Westower Communications, a Vancouver-based telecommunications tower building and maintenance company.

A three-man crew had been dispatched to the Northwestel Inc.-owned tower at King Solomon Dome, 32 kilometres southeast of Dawson City, to replace the tower's beacon light bulb.

The trio arrived at the worksite mid-morning Oct. 22, 2001. Both the foreman and the other rigger with Brownie told him he didn't have to make the climb. Replacing the light bulb was considered a one-man job.

Brownie started up the tower after the first rigger anyway. The other man reached the top and started to clear ice buildup off the beacon while Brownie continued to climb up to him.

While the other rigger's view of Brownie was obscured, he could hear the clipping sound of Brownie's safety harness as he attached it to the ladder rungs as he moved upward.

Then the clipping stopped, followed a few seconds later by a snap. The rigger sat up and looked toward Brownie, who let out a scream, and watched as the man fell backward.

Brownie had either unhooked his safety harness or had hooked it to a corroded lightening rod. The rod snapped under Brownie's weight when he grabbed it.

'It is not known why Stuart Brownie decided to climb the tower on that day when he was reportedly told that he did not need to do so,' Hanley said in her report. 'It is known that he had been drinking in the hours before his death. Certain occupations by their very nature are potentially more hazardous than others and accidents are more likely to happen. Research indicates that alcohol reduces reaction time and impairs performance.'

In November, Westower pleaded guilty in a Yukon courtroom to failing to provide adequate training and instruction and was fined $25,000. Part of the company's one-year probation order will involve revising and improving its own training and supervision procedures, as well as helping industry officials deliver better training to other similar businesses.

Nothing in Westower's training or policies said anything about riggers not hooking their safety harnesses to an 'add-on' structure such as a lightning rod or antennae.

In Brownie's case, the lightning rod he grabbed or hooked onto was badly corroded, but he wouldn't have been able to see how precariously the rod was attached simply by looking at it.