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2010 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Near-electrified Darwin Nomination

2010 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

Nearly Electrified Darwin Nomination

After reading about the IBEW member who tried to lift a power line in another story and electrified himself, I have to turn in a near miss on me.

I had delayed on this but thought it over for a couple days and said, "Ah, what the hell."

We had windstorms from Hurricane Ike in October 2008 here in Ohio that knocked out power where we live. This is in Finneytown, a suburb of Cincinnati.

In order to work using my laptop for any length of time, I had to go to Panera Bread on Kemper Road. Highway 4 runs North from where we're at.

Along the way I note that southbound traffic had to move into the northbound lane to avoid a large, fallen branch. I figured I'd do my deed for the day and move it off the road.

It was fairly heavy and I was just lifting it when I heard a female voice call out "Watch that power line over your head!"

Sure enough, on this section of Springfield Pike, for God only knows what reason, very thick power lines are only 15-20 feed off the ground. Where they sag between poles is right where I'd attempted to do my deed and could have won a Darwin Award right on the spot.

Any situation like that always looks worse when reality sinks in but I'll swear the lines, where they sag are 15' up if that far.

So no, I didn't end up like the IBEW fellow but I am an electronics engineer turned .Net programmer. Not like we are lacking on good sense and thinking things through.

Charles Darwin was cheated out of his chance to bestow an award but hey, there's always a chance for oversight again. Not that I'll be trying ... Now I know the answer to the question I was asking myself before I parked my truck to move this branch: "Why in hell doesn't someone MOVE that thing?" Easy -- they observed the low-hanging, thicker than a 20' boa electrical line!

As a note, when I got up near Kemper, there were 2 cars ready to turn left on another road just south of Kemper. Several poles were blown near full down on this road, something like only a 10 or 15 degree angle to the ground.

2 cars ... not one mind you, *2* stopped, looked, started to move straight ahead and then both decided to try and move down that road.

A policeman with an incredulous look on his face -- totally not able to understand that people need to *observe* the danger, pointed to the North on Springfield Pike. The real funny part? The 2 drivers looked at the officer like HE was out of his mind.

Darwin was cheated again. The thought going through the officer's mind had to be "I wonder if I'm just forestalling the inevitable ..."

Submitted on 06/03/2010

Submitted by: Mike Durthaler
Reference: Personal Account

Copyright © 2010 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: Lacks Excellence
Thanks, Mike, but it doesn't sound like you did anything truly stupid to me. Unless you work around power lines all the time you're likely not going to look up to see how close they are. I've done similar things myself once or twice. Now those two drivers on the other hand...


Candi said:
Definitely Toss: Lacks Excellence
This is what's bad about multiple entries: The second one is good, but we have to toss because the first is rejected. IF you want to resubmit the second by itself, go ahead!


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