Posted on 02/28/2008 6:31:07 PM PST by Orange1998
Apparent copper thief gets severe shock 02:29 PM CST on Thursday, February 28, 2008 By JESSICA VESS KVUE News Witnesses describe how a copper thief caused a major power outage in East Austin Wednesday afternoon. Over 7,000 people were without electricity for more than two hours, and authorities say the thief was air lifted to the hospital with severe electrical burns over his entire body. The latest on the case The man was inside the Kingsbury substation. 138,000 volts flow through that substation. There are only 10 substations that large in the entire city. It's fenced in and the gates are locked. Warning signs are posted all around it indicating the threat of a severe electric shock from the equipment could kill someone. Wednesday afternoon Austin Energy officials say it appears that the man cut through the fence in several spots and then went inside, apparently attempting to cut out copper wire that connects the station to the ground. “I heard something pop and everything like that and I came from the creek,” said witness Jesse Hernandez. When Hernandez came up he saw a man still stuck inside the fence of the sub-station. The man was engulfed in flames, 100% of his body was burned.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
The electric shock that caught the man on fire also cut off power to 7,300 homes. Most people wanted to see what caused the noise, but nobody expected to see a man on fire. “It was scary because like we heard those two big breakers pop and we went outside and we just saw him back there running like crazy. His whole clothes were on fire. You could see the flames on him. After all we just seen back there and his clothes, I mean his skin was just coming off,”
Remember the last thread we were on & this happened?
The recycling price for copper is pretty high. South of the border, internet providers have a major problem with theives digging up the copper lines to sell.
D*mn. He must have bone from ear to ear.
Is the copper thief cooperating with the coppers? Has he copped a plea?
Prayer for the man, he surely needs them.
That may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Wow.
Darwin Award for this guy.
Revolting cat, a penny for your thoughts.
Not a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Sure I will since we replaced 4 a/c units in the last 30 days. :)
I had a few properties in neighborhoods where the A/C compressors were getting stolen. I went to having them installed without a disconnect switch on the outside of the house. Then when the property sold, I would install the disconnect the day before closing.
See my #13. It may be useful to you.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
***The man was engulfed in flames, 100% of his body was burned.***
Think of a welding electrode. Now think of the man as the electrode.
Claude Cooper and the Copper Clapper Caper.
Somehow I didn't feel overly sorry for them. [Especially as a couple of months ago copper tubing was swiped from a freezer for a food bank causing a loss of [I think] $2 million in frozen food for the needy.
That does not stop them around here. I know a home builder a/c’s stolen so he started installing them the night before closing. Then they would steal them first thing in the morning. Now he only installs after closing.
“Warning signs are posted”
Gee, maybe if the signs weren’t in Mexican he can sue?
(assuming illegal status. good chance IMHO)
agreed
Yeah he may be a winner without even dying.
Shocks like that with burns can burn/blow off some things you need to reproduce.
I had electrical wires ripped out of a house that we were building. Quite a few houses around town got hit last year.
I reinstalled them on the roof this time. We shall see.
What..... being a thief or the way he did it. :)
Man, I can’t believe ANYBODY doesn’t know the dangers of a substation - I don’t even like walking near them
Maybe next time he will not do that again. Let me restate, maybe in his next life he will not do that again.
“You’ll never take me alive, copper!”
See, this is why we need national health care. The thief is probably worried to death about how he’s going to pay for his hospital care.
When I was a kid theives would give nothing less then %110!
Guys around my area build steel cages around the outside units. Nobody uses copper pipe for plumbing lines anymore and the first thing they install in any rehab project is an alarm system. A lot of these builders would gladly donate some copper to the thieves, though - a couple of copper-jacketed hollow points. And they’d even offer “express delivery” of them.
Maybe dynachrome was right that the danger sign was in english only.
Last year Hawaii was plagued by copper thieves, as soon as a new home was built the thieves went in and ripped out all the plumbing and wiring, also street lights are losing their wiring.
Copper is the poor mans gold right now, per pound even the older real copper pennies are worth more per pound by scrap metal prices.
I am about to put up a sign on my business entrance stating no scrap metal collectors allowed as they continuously try to talk themselves into our back lot where I have acres of aluminum frames and motors.
***I mean his skin was just coming off,”***
Third degree burns. If he survives, which sounds unlikely, his friends may start calling him “Sparky”!
I'd imagine there would be two kinds of ground connections. One kind is the "ground", which might be relatively safe to cut, as it normally does not carry current. The other would be the "neutral", which carries running current to ground. Sounds like he misjudged a bit... ouch!
An copper stealing Einstein in my town got toasted when he used a bolt cutter to sever the main going into a service box in an abandoned K-Mart a while back.
“I am about to put up a sign on my business entrance stating no scrap metal collectors allowed as they continuously try to talk themselves into our back lot where I have acres of aluminum frames and motors.”
Put a couple of dogs back there for after hours.
Copper thieves would live a lot longer if they bothered to learn something about electricity.
I’m glad you’re the first to say it, LOL. It occurred to me to wonder about the water content of certain parts of a man’s anatomy. Enough to blow off? to vaporize?
Welcome to FR, BTW.
First of all the low pitched hum, is your first sign of danger, second it sounds like he tried to remove the ground from the substation. His organs must have been cooked.
Well I figured that but if I was burned I would want prayers.
I’ll bet you have a story or two about copper thieves...
There is more to find to... These thieves could find a COPPER DEPOSIT and retire but they'd rather STEAL IT.. DOH!..
One hundred percent of his body was burned.
This was going on all over Baghdad in 2003. When a neighborhood had their power shut off as part of a load shedding plan the thieves would immediately start hacking away at the lines. If you were still hacking when the power came back on, zap!
ZOT!
“That may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Wow.”
We’ve actually got several billboards in my area warning thieves that that might get fried.
I guess it’s happening a lot.
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