Airway Heights inmate electrocuted while on work-release

An inmate at Airway Heights Corrections Center was killed today south of Springdale, Wash. when he was electrocuted cutting a tree near a power line. The inmate, 22-year-old Danny R. Bergeson, was working with a Department of Natural Resources work crew in Stevens County, according to a news release from the prison. Bergeson was convicted in Skagit County of trying to elude a police vehicle, and was scheduled for release in January. The crew, one of four 10-person groups that work with the Department of Natural Resources fighting and preventing fires, was thinning trees, the release said. Crew members and medical units performed CPR, but Bergeson was pronounced dead at 12:15 p.m. “This is the first fatality or serious injury involving an offender on an Airway Heights work crew,” the release said. Airway Heights houses about 2,200 minimum- and medium-security inmates.