March 22, 2007 08:51am
Article from: AAP

A MAN has been electrocuted on his north Queensland property overnight.

Police say the 64-year-old man died after walking on a fallen powerline in long grass at Mission Beach around 7.20pm (AEST).

He had been checking out his property with his 30-year-old son after losing power.

The son suffered a minor shock when he tried to help his father who died at the scene.

Police said two powerlines had been brought down, possibly when a bird flew into them.

Investigations are continuing but police said there were no suspicious circumstances.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21426281-1702,00.html

Thanks for that report 32VAC.
My advice to anyone out in the more rural areas, if you lose power, stay indoors.
You can do nothing until a person trained in HV equipment gets to your place.
Going to find a downed power line is one of the silliest ideas this side of the black stump.
The further you are out from a city, the higher the voltage will be too.
I don't think that this guy actually stepped on the downed line, I think that he got so close to it that the step voltage over-rode the insulation value of his footwear.
With some of the more rural areas using voltages in the 10's if not 100's of kV's this is a real worry.
Think of a situation like this as the same as dropping a stone into a pool of water.
The stone is where the cable fell, now you are depending upon a recloser or it could even be an SWER line, where the point of origin of the circuit could be miles away.
High resistance joints (over time) could compromise the protection system, these things are hardly ever tested in rural areas
mean that the chances of a fault clearing could take a lot longer than usual.
Back to the pool of water, if you happen to tread between the ripples, you have a potential difference on each foot, the closer you get to the stone, the higher the step potential difference.
Peoples shoes have melted in some cases, where 11kV lines have fallen here.

Then again you have people that are pure idiots and have tried to MOVE a downed power line. Yes, its the truth, it happened a block from here!

A.D