Slush Pile: Man injured during intrusion at sub

2008 Slush Pile

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Man injured during intrusion at sub

2008 Reader Submission
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Man injured during intrusion at substation Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 08:22 PM

From Austin Energy:

A man sustained serious burns over much of his body from an electrical shock while apparently attempting to steal copper wiring from an Austin Energy substation this afternoon. The Kingsbury substation where the incident occurred is located near Airport Boulevard and Springdale Road.

The substation tripped off line at about 3:00 p.m. When Austin Energy crews arrived, two individuals who apparently lived in the area were trying to help the injured man out of the substation. Witnesses said the man’s clothing had been on fire. According to Austin Police, the injured man was airlifted from the site to the Brooks Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Power comes into the Kingsbury substation at a high voltage where it is stepped down to a lower voltage for distribution to customers. Austin Energy staff estimate that the injured individual could have received as much as 80,000 volts of electricity while trying to remove wiring. Austin Energy crews found openings that had been cut into the substation fence. The substation’s gates were locked.

Austin Energy crews inspecting the substation found multiple equipment grounds missing. Grounds are wiring that runs from equipment into the ground. They are there so that a power surge, which could be caused by lightning or an equipment failure, will flow into the ground rather than into equipment. The inspection also indicated the outage caused by the incident may have resulted in damage to equipment in the substation.

The incident reinforces the very serious dangers associated with tampering in any way with electric system equipment. Theft of copper wiring from electric systems has become an increasing problem in Austin and across the country and a number of deaths have resulted during attempted thefts. Austin Energy has taken steps to shield copper wiring in its substations to make access more difficult and where possible has switched to less valuable materials to try to make the wire less attractive to thieves. The utility is also increasing surveillance around its substations.

The outage caused by the incident affected approximately 7,300 customers in an area from the Colorado River to about 54th Street and from Highway 183 to Chicon. Austin Energy crews performed switching in the field to serve the affected customer through other circuits. Power was restored to all affected customers within about 2 hours.

Submitted on 02/28/2008

Submitted by: David Braje
Reference: Austin American-Statesman 2/27/2008

>> Moderator Scores <<

James said:
Definitely Toss: Too Common
Thanks for sending this in. Alas, this sort of thing is SO common it hurts!!! We get almost identical stories (some lived, most died; all were stupid, all were fried!) from around the world on almost a weekly basis! Nevertheless, we DO appreciate the submission!

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: Too Common
As James indicated, this sort of incident has become way too common. Thanks just the same.

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2008 Slush Pile

Man injured during intrusion at sub

2008 Reader Submission Pending Acceptance

2008 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance