Results tagged “electrocution”

A reader wants to remind dog owners—and everyone else— to be aware that their pups could be electrocuted not just by lamp posts and manhole covers but by construction scaffolding as well.

An Astoria man is suing Amtrak because they "should have known that people trespassed" in the area of a Boston station where he was severely electrocuted two years ago. After a night of drinking in July 2006, 25-year-old Brian Hopkins went down to Boston's South Station at 2 a.m. after telling friends that he "wanted to get back to New York." There he tried to force his way inside an Acela and climbed on top of a parked train car when he was jolted by 27,500 volts from arcing overhead wires. He suffered third-degree burns over 85 percent of his body, and doctors have since amputated his left hand and leg. In the suit, his family claims that Amtrak should have taken more precautions to keep trespassers out of the potentially dangerous area.

Another sad story of pet electrocution comes out of Queens; ABC reports that Cecelia Sing's Siberian husky named Sebastian died on his Sunday night walk in Long Island City. A lamppost is believed to have shocked him with stray voltage (not an unfamiliar story).

"As soon as he got to the lamppost, he jumped and he dropped," she said. "And he starting shaking wildly, and I'm like, 'Go on. Get up, Sebastian, get up,' And he wouldn't move. And he just shook. And then, all of the sudden, he stopped shaking and he was dead. My dog was dead."

While the Department of Transportation is responsible for the post itself, it's Con Ed who "handles electricity up to the post." The DoT told ABC that there was a stray voltage but "we are not able to confirm if it was ConEd or DOT." After a 2006 sidewalk electrocution, Con Ed took the blame after first pointing the finger at the DoT.

With pedestrians and puppies getting electrocuted all over the city, a website has finally launched mapping hot zones.

New Yorkers can walk the streets--and their pets--with renewed confidence this winter. Con Ed is reporting that one's chance of electrocution via stray voltage is down more than 20%, based upon their most recent survey. Of course, being electrocuted while walking around is a very remote possibility, although it does happen, especially in winter, when salt water and slushy water become simultaneously a corrosive agent and an effective conductor of electricity. The utility recorded only 295 accounts of people being shocked last year, versus 378 the prior year. That's a 22% reduction.

A 37-year-old man ended his train trip atop a Metro-North car at the Pelham station, where he fell or was pulled from the train's roof, while on fire and suffering from burns after coming into contact with a high voltage power cable. Accounts of the incident differ, but do agree on the fact that the adventurer was named Eric Chavez, he suffered burns on his body, and that it was somewhat of a miracle that he was alive.

Notwithstanding a massive steam explosion that horribly burned some New Yorkers and shut down a large section of midtown Manhattan for weeks, neighborhood blackouts that have left thousands in the dark and without air conditioning in the heat of summer, and occasional stray voltage leaks that have electrocuted people and pets, Mayor Bloomberg feels that Con Ed is doing a decent job and customers should be willing to pay extra each month to the utility. Aides insist that Bloomberg wasn't formally endorsing a $1.2 billion rate hike, which would boost customers' bills by an average of 17%. He was just pointing out that the company doesn't make that much money and that it needs additional funds to upgrade the city's energy infrastructure.