One evening I was taking some of the off duty staff to the train station. On the way back

I noticed a sudden pillar of flame jump out of a patch of open bush. So I decided I would investigate and radioed for one of the fire fighters to bring some fire beaters ( broom handles with strips of old hose on the end ).

On arrival of the my co worker we walked to the spot and proceeded to beat the small fire out and as it was a small thing we had no torches with us what did prove a problem is that this object that we thought was a log wouldn’t quite extinguish . It was at this moment that we noticed that the street lights in that area were off and that there was what appeared to be a wire hanging from the over head power lines . We then radioed the control room to dispatch to our location police as well as the head of the electricity department as we suspected some fowl play afoot .

My colleague and I then went to wait by the road for the police etc to arrive.

When the police arrived we started back up the hill to the site of the fire we were about 50 meters away when we realised a nearly fatal error on the control rooms staff behalf in that they hadn’t told the on duty electrician who had been dispatched to deal with a power outage in the area of the problem that we were dealing with. So what happened was huge lightning bolts started arching from the over head line to the ground . We were later told that as the lines were rated at 11000 volts if we were within 10 meters of the line we would have been fried.

After much yelling over the radio for the electrician to stop trying to turn back on the power and in the proses fry us , we proceeded back up to the site with the police and the head electrician who had all so by this time arrived torches in hand what we found at the base of the wire attached to the power line was the remains of one very charred human being , not a log.

What this misguided individual was trying to do was steal copper wire normally a easy thing with a long pole and a pair of wire cutters. His fatal flaw was A. he chose high voltage power lines and not telephone lines

B. he had a bamboo pole but with a piece of wire for a hook at the end with the wire running the length of the pole he did how ever have a pair of electricians gloves on but those failed him when his naked for arm came in contact

with the wire on the pole.

Let me just end off by saying that he was a crispy corpse that place were that wire maid contact with his arm had actually been burnt down right to the bone no to mention a few other places on his body.

Donovan Wood

Submitted on 10/21/2008

Submitted by: Donovan Wood
Reference:

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Yet another in a long line of dumb copper thieves for Darwin to get a chuckle out of. Thanks, Donovan!

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Yep. I kind of like the touch where the electrician sent to deal with the outage didn't check to see WHY the power was out! Thanks, Donovan!

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