Officials identified the man as Guy Bayles Harlan, 44.

Just before 12:30 a.m., sheriff's dispatchers and the Karnes Electric Cooperative, the local energy distributor, received calls about power outages in the eastern half of the county, in addition to reports of a fiery flash in the sky and a loud boom, said Atascosa County Sheriff's Chief Deputy David Soward.

Daniel Sauceda, the cooperative's Pleasanton district manager, drove out to the nearby substation and noticed someone had cut through the fenced area. He found Harlan's body inside, on the ground.

Investigators now believe multiple suspects were inside the fenced-in substation for at least two hours, stripping the copper wiring that grounds many of the electrical devices.

They believe Harlan was standing on one of the substation transformers, cutting off one of the wires, when the electricity arced toward him, Soward said.

Because of the amount of power in the transformer, Harlan wouldn't have necessarily had to come in contact with the grounded metal to be electrocuted. With a voltage that high, “it reaches out to you,” Sauceda said.

The incident left about 1,250 people without power for about 45 minutes, Sauceda said. Workers quickly rerouted power to another transformer and later rerouted it back after determining no permanent damage had been done to the structure.

The other suspects, who remained at large, caused about $20,000 in damage, Soward said. He added that the copper thefts, after falling for about a year, creeped up in the last two or three months.

No one was arrested, and Soward said two other electrical substations were hit overnight, likely before Harlan was killed: one near Charlotte and another six miles north of Poteet.

Submitted on 01/29/2010

Submitted by: Steven Wood
Reference: San Antonio Express News 1-29-2010

Copyright © 2010 DarwinAwards.com

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
More crispy crooks copping copper for Darwin.

James said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Aye!

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