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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
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pauluk Offline OP
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Quote
A boy of 15 died yesterday after being electrocuted and falling from a 100ft high electricity pylon.

The teenager was climbing the tower and accidentally touched the 66,000-volt power lines.

He was thrown off by the shock and friends saw him fall to his death on barbed wire 20ft above the ground that had been put up round the pylon to deter people from climbing it.

Paramedics and fire officers arrived within minutes but he was pronounced dead at the scene near Rotherham.

The boy, named locally as Michael O'Nion, is believed to have lived with his family nearby.


Full report:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...unges-death-66-000-volt-pylon-shock.html


Arc Flash PPE Clothing, LOTO & Insulated Tools
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 61
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That is just terrible!

~Matt


I would rather beg for forgiveness then beg for permission.
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 404
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Wanna bet any of his buddies are going to try the same thing?

Sorry, but if you ignore common sense AND barbed wire...

Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,158
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Truly a sad thing for his young Friends to deal with and remember. I sure hope there is some support for his buddies to deal with this.


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Posts: 7,520
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pauluk Offline OP
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It's sad, but I notice already from the newspaper comments the usual calls from some people that these "dangerous overhead lines" shouldn't be allowed.

When there are barbed wire barriers, warning signs, and the lines are 100 ft. above ground, I'm not sure what else we can be expected to do to deter a 15-year-old boy who should know better.

Maybe it's time to bring some of the old public information films out of retirement, like the one I posted recently in this thread:

https://www.electrical-contractor.n...showflat/Number/179588/page/1#Post179588

Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,443
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I seriously doubt that the young fella got close enough to the line to actually touch it.
This sounds like he was hit when he came within the minimum clearance distance of the line and an arc formed between the line, his body and the earthed tower he would have been holding on to.

Not a nice way to go IMO.
You can only do so much with barriers and the like, determined people will circumvent these.

All of the 66kV stuff I've ever done has either been with the lines de-energised and earthed or wearing a heap of hot gear and using hot-sticks, from a distance.
Electricity of this calibre has no friends, don't get in it's way.

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
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pauluk Offline OP
Member
Originally Posted by Trumpy
I seriously doubt that the young fella got close enough to the line to actually touch it.
This sounds like he was hit when he came within the minimum clearance distance of the line and an arc formed


Just as depicted with the unfortunate Jimmy trying to recover his Frisbee in the "Play Safe" advisory.

Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 97
J
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When I was at school, the major point of warning was the overhead and easily climable railway electrification. We were told that poking sticks near them from the bridges would cause immediate death!

Rotherham has a National Grid 400kV switching station and the place is riddled with overhead lines. They must know of the danger surely or the schools are doing a pretty poor job of frightening them.

The dangers of these things was drummed into us from about 6 and continued each year until we were 16.

When we were 15, we had a speaker in who asked whether we thought a 13A socket had enough electricity to kill, some of us said no! Not sure how he worked it out but he said there was 5 times the amount required for a fatal shock.


I took my time, I hurried up, The choice was mine, I didn't think enough
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 1,253
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djk Offline
Member
In Ireland you occasionally see a message from ESB networks warning about the dangers of power lines on building sites or farms. They're pretty bland adverts these days and don't really strike the same level of fear of power lines into people that the old ads did.

Perhaps it's time they did a fresh batch with more modern production values. The current road safety ads are pretty disturbingly realistic.

Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,213
S
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If they got the crew from Top Gear to do some public service spots, they'd all turn out to be awesome.

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