Slush Pile: Not one but TWO electrocuted steali

2007 Slush Pile

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Not one but TWO electrocuted steali

2007 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

TYNGSBORO, MA -- It was 2:58 p.m. Wednesday, and Tyngsboro firefighters were on a routine call for a fire alarm triggered inside a water tank at the former Hussey Plastics factory on Middlesex Road.

About 20 yards from the tank, in a fenced-off area marked with "high voltage" signs, they discovered the bodies.

Roland Farland, 58, of 44 Lynn St., Nashua, and Gary S. Rich, 42, whose last known address was Manchester, N.H., were laying near two transformers surrounded by a chain-link fence. Rich's identity was not released until Thursday morning.

Firefighters could not immediately approach the men because of electrical danger. It wasn't until National Grid workers cut power to the transformers that emergency crews and police could confirm that the men were dead, and begin an investigation.

The men were found about 30 yards from the large water tank where the fire alarm had gone off, apparently triggered when one of them took bolt cutters to a wire that carried about 13,000 volts of electricity, according to Acting Police Chief Richard Burrows.

Burrows said Thursday morning that although the investigation is ongoing, the deaths appear to be accidental.

The owner of the industrial building at 65 Middlesex Road, abandoned for several years now, confirmed that the men were not authorized to be on the site, Burrows said.

A building caretaker had been at the scene until 2 p.m., and saw nothing, Burrows said.

"We spoke to the property owner and they were not authorized to be here," Burrows said. "They don't appear to be electricians either."

The suspicious circumstances in which the men were found, along with a freshly cut pile of wire near the pickup truck they drove there, have police investigating whether the men may have been trying to steal copper wire, Burrows said.

Neither man wore any protective gear for such an operation.

"There's a piece of the fence that was pulled back to gain access," he said.

To a layman, the wire that was cut could appear to be a ground wire that would carry no electricity in most electrical setups, Burrows said. In the industrial complex, though, it was part of an electrical system and transformer that a professional would easily recognize as dangerous.

"If you weren't an electrician, you wouldn't think it was hot," Burrows said of the wire.

It was not immediately clear why both men were killed, or if one tried to save the other from the deadly current, only to be shocked himself.

Burrows said state police detectives with Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone's office, along with the state medical examiner's office, will try to determine that.

The bodies were taken by the medical examiner's office, which will conduct autopsies.

Police also towed a gray Ford Ranger pickup with New Hampshire handicapped license plates from the scene. Burrows said freshly cut wire was found in a pile near that truck, which belonged to one of the victims.

The truck had an orange emergency light atop its cab, but no other markings to indicate it belongs to any kind of business.

Copper wire and other copper items have been stolen with increasing frequency in recent years, ever since China's entry into the commodities market sent metal prices skyrocketing.

Thomas Kennedy, president of the New York-based Copper Club, told The Sun late last year that the Chinese entry into the market has tripled the price of copper.

"Copper used to be ... maybe up to $1 a pound," Kennedy said. "But $3, my God, that's crazy."

He said China's phenomenally fast growth in recent years was largely responsible for the rate at which they were buying copper, and that the high prices that spurred had even trickled down to local scrap yards, which now pay well for the metal.

There have been dozens of such thefts around the region since, including some in which thousands of dollars in copper were taken.

St. Dorothy's Church on Main Street in Wilmington had 25 to 30 feet of copper piping removed and stolen in September 2006, police there said.

Lowell, Billerica and Pelham have made arrests for such thefts, and they have also been reported in Tyngsboro before.

My write up of the events: The price of copper has trippled in the last few years, but the intelligence level of would be copper theives has not.

Two men, Roland Farland, 58, of 44 Lynn St., Nashua, NH and Gary S. Rich, 42, whose last known address was Manchester, N.H., broke into a fenced-off power transformer at an industrial complex in Tyngsboro, MA. They were armed with bolt cutters to attack the copper cable carrying 13,000 volts, and a truck to haul the copper away. They forgot to bring protective gear and the ability to read the 'High Voltage' warning signs.

The cripsy critters were found by the local fire department when they responded to a call a short distance away and noticed the odd BBQ smell.

Investigators think that one man tried to cut the cable and was electrocuted, and then the other man tried to save him and was also electrocuted.

Re-volting!

Submitted on 03/29/2007

Submitted by: Steve DeVaux
Reference: Lowell Sun, 3/29/2007 http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_5547035

>> Moderator Scores <<

James said:
Definitely Toss: Repeat
Thanks for taking the time to send this in, Steve! We aldrady have this story under consideration and unfortunately there's no new information here but we DO appreciate the submission just the same! :-)

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: Repeat
Thanks for the submission, Steve. As James said, we've already gotten this one a few times.

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2007 Slush Pile

Not one but TWO electrocuted steali

2007 Reader Submission Pending Acceptance

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2007 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

>> The Darwin Awards, by Wendy Northcutt <<
Link to Fight Evil.