This is not a nominee for the Darwin Award, but it is a good story for the Honorable Mention. This actually happened to a co-worker and me while we were working on campus of Trinity Christian College (in Palos Heights, Il) during the summer of 1980.

Back then, main-frame computers used to be powered by their own electric transformers, but this doesn't involve the transformer. This story is about what happened AFTER the transformer was removed and we were detailed to remove the cable that was left sticking up above the ground. My co-worker (whose name has escaped me throughout the past 28 years) and I were assigned to pull up the cable and cut it off under the ground so no one would get hurt. We were told that it was dead and all we needed to do was pull it to the pole and cut it.

We proceeded to pull it up until we got to a sidewalk. The cable appeared to go under the sidewalk toward a nearby power pole, so we decided to dig a trench on the other side of the sidewalk to prevent having to replace the concrete. We ended up digging a trench about 3 feet long and 6" deep looking for the cable on the far side of the sidewalk but came up with nothing.

This is where our common sense departed us. We (ok it was me who made the decision!!) decided that, since the cable was leading to the nearby pole we would dig down from the pole and cut the cable running back toward where we left the cable at. We removed the cable gaurd from the cables, which involved taking bolts out of the pole and wrestling the gaurd out of the ground. Then we dug down to where the 3 power cables branched off in different directions. We found the one going back the way we came and figured we found the right one.

My co-worker pulled the cable away from the others and, after I put the (all metal) pair of bolt cutters on the cable, backed up about 5 or 6 feet to the side. I guess I had a forboding that something was going to happen because before I cut into the cable, I asked, "Are you ready?"

A lot of things happened in the next few seconds, so I will try to get them right. First, as I cut into the "dead" power cable, a fireball shot out toward my co-worker, almost hitting him. Second, I saw that and looked down at my hands, thinking I should let go of the cutter. As I thought that, my vision went to black and I heard a very loud explosion. Third, on the campus, the power to the north side was out and the power to the south side dimmed to almost nothing then came back.

The next thing I remember was getting up off the ground about 35 - 40 feet away from the pole. I didn't feel anything, but my co-worker was shaking like a leaf. So I had him go get the boss while I made sure no one came near the now fused cutters. About 20 minutes later, I started to get a tingling feeling all over my body, like my foot gets when it falls asleep except this was from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. The emergency room doctor was surprised that I had no burns on my body at all.

The cable I cut into held about 50,000 volts. The only reason I didn't end up fried was that as soon as I cut the cable, a circuit breaker on the pole blew. The voltage hit me but didn't have time to go through my body to the ground. The doctor said that it was like a giant fist hitting me and throwing me back from the cutters.

My girlfriend at the time (yes, she did marry me later) was in a building in the south half of the campus and noticed the lights dimming but didn't know it was because of me till later.

Submitted on 12/16/2008

Submitted by: David Gronseth
Reference: personal story

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
That was one heck of an assumption you made when digging up that cable. You do know what happens when you "assume", don't you? I'm guessing you never made such a guess like that after you learned this lesson or we likely would be hearing about you posthumously. Thanks, David!

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
So you "lived to tell", eh, David? A very amusing tale! I'll vote to keep it!

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