Posted on 01/12/2005 12:50:31 PM PST by jdm
CHARDON, Ohio (AP) - A 17-year-old Amish boy was electrocuted trying to remove a power line that got tangled in his horse-drawn buggy's wheels, authorities said. The boy drove over a power line Tuesday that had sagged down within a foot of the road after separating from a pole, authorities said. The line got stuck in the wheels and stopped the buggy. The boy got out and grabbed the 4,800-volt line in an attempt to remove it from the wheels, the Geauga County Sheriff's office said. He died at the scene. The boy's name was not released because his family had not all been notified, officials said. The Amish are a deeply religious group who shun modern conveniences such as electricity, telephones and car ownership. About 40,000 Amish live in Ohio, the most of any state. The boy was traveling south on a road near Geauga-Trumbull County line in northeast Ohio, about 25 miles east of Cleveland. The horse pulling the buggy was not injured.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.netscape.cnn.com ...
"The horse pulling the buggy was not injured."
MSM had to throw that in at the end.
Poor kid.
His parents should have told him about 'electricity'.
Sad. Prayers for the family.
Awful.
Or radio...someone better warn Amish kids about box jelly fish and funnel spiders too. LOL!
Joking aside, this is a terrible thing to have happened. Prayers for the family. I'd imagine a close knit community like the Amish can lend a lot of support for the parents at this time.
Newfangled electricity causes yet another death.
At least he wasn't killed by an SUV.
I wonder if the Amish are so set against modern things that they wouldn't warn their kids against touching downed power lines? I raise that not to blame them but just as a point of curiosity. I know they avoid using modern gadgets, but I wonder if they avoid thinking and knowing about them.
Even people who live in a electric world don't understand how much power is going through those lines. They would expect a little shock but not instant death.
We would all have been better off it the had chosen to suppress that fact.
I've been to Holmes county a couple of times (high concentration in Ohio) and there's lots of modern conveniences in the area, it's just that they choose not to come in contact with them. Very sincere Christian people. BTW - there's no moral component to ignorance, as opposed to foolishness or "willing ignorance".
On my trips to Amish country I didn't like invading the area where they live - many of them would essentially like to be left alone to live out their lives in their community.
OTOH, they do make reasonable amounts of money on the tourism in the area, selling their wares (furniture, cheese, handiwork) to willing buyers.
There are "higher" and "lower" orders of Amish - the lower the order the less they have to do with modern society. The Amish are offshoots of the Mennonites, btw.
Somehow I don't think he watched too much TV.
Sadly, this happens way too often...not only to Amish. I'm amazed that people think they can just move downed power lines "out of their way". A lot of adults die from it too.
Shocking!!!
How could they, they probably have no more concept of it than the boy.
The buggy was prolly an SUV type.
SUB?
a power line that got tangled in his horse-drawn buggy's wheels,I see an inconsistnacy in this account - how does a buggy (PULLED ostensibly by a live, electrically conductive horse) 'drive' over a 4800 volt cable - and nothing happens until the boy 'untangles' the cable which somehow got tangtled up in the wheels ...The boy drove over a power line Tuesday that had sagged down within a foot of the road after separating from a pole,
The line got stuck in the wheels and stopped the buggy.
Bad writing/bad account by the press on this one?
Don't those wooden buggy wheels have an outside 'loop' of mild steel as the surface that contacts the road?
So it might not have grounded until he touched it.
My first experince and knowledge of the Amish came years ago when I visited relatives in Chardon. The Amish community is a very interesting group of people.
There are varying degrees to which they shun modern conviences but I'm surpriessed that this young man was not aware of the dangers.
My prayers for him and his family.
When I was at school I lived for 8 years near Amish country in southwestern Ontario. A lot of their buggies actually use auto tires and axles, so the occupants of the buggy are as isolated from the current as you would be in your car.
By Ontario traffic law, horse-drawn vehicles must display a slow-moving vehicle sign. The Amish are exempt on religious grounds, but I never saw a buggy without an SMV sign. Most Amish also light their buggies with electric lights instead of lanterns. Since many of them appear to have made an acceptable compromise between their religious practice and road safety, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the car tires were also a safety measure because of the possibility of downed wires.
Insulated by hardwood.
A lot of their buggies actually use auto tires and axlesGood point, but, those tires are not completely insulating - and if there are conductive in the least, 4800 volts will certainly cause current flow! (Suggested test: check the conductivity of one of your car's tires with an ohmmeter on one of the higher Ohm's ranges.)
I see even less reason for believing this story now, with standard car-type tires on the wagon!
Something is still not adding up ...
???
Recall, here, due to gravity and normal operation of a circular wheel, it is my contention that at some point contact would be made between the ground (at 'ground' potential) and the 4800 Volt line; these consequences are normally NOT without accompanying 'sound and sight' events (arcing and sparking).
Even wood is semiconducting unless measures have been taken to assure that it has been dried sufficiently for whatever purpose (such as open wire transmission line insulators, after whuch they are normally dipped in wax to seal them aganst moisture).
Funny thing about the Amish farmers. They cant use a tractor and bailer to bail hay but they can use a horse to pull a bailer that is powered by an engine that runs, but does not propell the machine over the field.
a lot of their buggies have rubber tires.A simple and unassuming assumption, but wrong.
Tires are a complex belend of materials which usually results in a conductive (well semiconducting) product.
For instance, Carbon Black is once such 'conducting' material that is placed iin tires for a variety of purposes.
Carbon Black Optimizes the Physics of Rubber Mixtures
Don't ask me how I found out, long ago, that tires are 'conducting'*.
* semi-conducting actually.
That's so sad. I will pray for the young lad's soul and the comfort and strength of the parents.
The Amish I knew were certainly aware of modern gadgets and how they work. Some even own gasoline powered appliances and if they don't have gas powered available they will convert an electrical one to gas. While Amish may not be able (for religious reasons) use some modern conveniences they have no quarrel with getting some of the "English" to use it for them. In the Amish mind this makes perfect sense even if we don't understand the seeming contradiction.
This was just some poor kid(ahem, man. The term 'kid' is considered slang and not to be used) not thinking, in a hurry, or unable to see (was it dark?) exactly what his tire caught on.
There will be families from all over the country who will come to this man's funeral. It seems they are all distantly related to each other. This is so sad.
Yup! It would take more time than I have now to explain the Amish thinking concerning this and other seeming contradictions. The Mennonites have their own set of rules setting out what you can and cannot do that makes about as much sense to those of us on the outside. Wonderful folks, though. The hardest decision I ever made was getting out of the Mennonite church. They were family. I miss them still.
There were no horse rigs parked in front or in the rear, just cars and trucks.
So I guess maybe these Canadian Amish (assuming that they were Canadians and not visitors) are more "modern"? Though it did freak me out some to see them eating fast food.
Umm. No electricity, no TV.
Maybe that's why he missed the PSA's.
They were probably Anabaptists, who maintain the dress of Amish, but accept some modern conveniences. There are many of them in Ontairio.
Thanks for explaining that!
I can tell the difference between different sects of Hasidic Jews by their accents and hat styles, but all those plain people look alike to me.
OK, who are the guys in Borough Park with the big furry Russian hats? Bobovers?
There are different styles of streimel. Do you mean the tall fur hats, the round hats, the round hats with a velvet cap or the fur flaps that tie on top?
Bobovers are Polish, they wear the tall style.
Man, this just begs for the moderator to add (Irony Alert) in the title.
I guess the power company will have to send out pamphlets by mail, if they haven't already.
That car looks half-assed.
The round, furry hats.
We were driving through Pennsylvania several years ago, and I walked around the corner of a building and saw an Amish man smoking a cigarette or cigarillo or something. It just set me back for some reason.
Variations in Hasidic dress were originally regional and identified a Jew as Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, Belgium, etc. But after the Holocaust when these communities were re-established in Israel and the U.S. they maintained their distinctive dress codes as a way of honoring the memory of those old communities.
No, I'd guess that was pretty typical for the area. In Waterloo it wasn't unusual to find a buggy tied up in the parking lot at a local supermarket, either. Inside, you would find Amish women in long black dresses and caps and Nike sneakers buying canned goods.
As someone said up-thread, I'm sure the Amish ethic makes perfect sense from their perspective even if we "English" find it inconsistent.
Most lines run perpendicular to the road. Perhaps the wheel engaged it that way.
Darn good point.
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