Teen Dies Days After Touching Electrified Fence On School Football Field

Status
Not open for further replies.
Reporting is crappy, I think the school knew and on top of that reading the comments you can tell some of them have been deleted. Heck one guy flat out mentions his comment was deleted after bringing up that the problem could have been found quicker. Which doesn't surprise me in the least considering some local media outlets like to delete comments that seem counter to the story:happyno::rant:
 
meternerd said:
Had a similar incident (though not fatal) in Alaska. We (the POCO) got a call that there was smoke coming from the grass near a chain link fence in a school yard. Line crew went out and grounded the fence under the overhead power lines by driving a few ground rods, thinking it was induction. Another call a few days later saying an employee got a shock when he was locking a gate. Our engineer went out and decided we needed to ground the fence in multiple places. I, being a meter/relay tech, went along. We read 118V from the fence to a nearby well casing. We ran a jumper of bare #6 copper from the fence to the casing and measured voltage to ground again. Measured 0V. We did see a spark when we grounded the wire. But...about thirty seconds later, I noticed the wire was smoking and beginning to sag. Then it quit and cooled off. Well, we figured we had a trip of the overhead circuit. Called dispatch, and no trips. The school maintenance guy came out and said they lost power to part of a shop building. We found a tripped 30A breaker inside. Well, long story short, they had done some remodeling and drove a screw through a hot wire behind a sheet metal wall. Had nothing to do with induction. But talking to the maintenance guy, he said it had been that way for weeks, and the kids (elementary school) had been going up to the fence and touching it to feel the "tickle". Wow! They may have some detective work to do to solve this one.
Click to expand...




:lol::lol::lol: That some induction if smoke is coming from the fence. Must've been on of those 1,500,380kv lines? :lol::lol:
 
ggunn said:
I was wondering myself why the fence wouldn't be grounded at every pole since each pole is at least somewhat related to a concrete encased ground.
Click to expand...
Electrode to earth resistance is generally too high to allow enough current to flow to trip overcurrent devices on typical power and lighting circuits when dealing with less then 1000 volts systems.
 
Besoeker said:
Sounds like it might never have been right.
Click to expand...



"A ground wire between two light posts on the field did not connect to the circuit breaker, he said, and the electricity traveled to the fence near the bleachers."


I just learned something new, ground wires are supposed to connect to the circuit breaker :DGuess I've been doing it wrong all these years.:eek::(
 
mbrooke said:
"A ground wire between two light posts on the field did not connect to the circuit breaker, he said, and the electricity traveled to the fence near the bleachers."


I just learned something new, ground wires are supposed to connect to the circuit breaker :DGuess I've been doing it wrong all these years.:eek::(
Click to expand...

:thumbsup:

Reporting like that is why I think it is pointless for us to try to figure out what happened based on the media reports.
 
kwired said:
Electrode to earth resistance is generally too high to allow enough current to flow to trip overcurrent devices on typical power and lighting circuits when dealing with less then 1000 volts systems.
Click to expand...



Even at 13,200 volts its hit or miss.
 
iwire said:
:thumbsup:

Reporting like that is why I think it is pointless for us to try to figure out what happened based on the media reports.
Click to expand...


Reporting like that is why I don't trust the media in anything. People call me a conspiracy theorist for questioning the news, but if they can give misleading statements for something that any electrician knows is flat out incorrect imagine the lies they spin when it comes to national issues.
 
mbrooke said:
Reporting like that is why I don't trust the media in anything. People call me a conspiracy theorist for questioning the news, but if they can give misleading statements for something that any electrician knows is flat out incorrect imagine the lies they spin when it comes to national issues.
Click to expand...

I used to work at a job where the media was often around and reporting on my place of employment. Sometimes I was directly involved and was shown on the local news a number of times. It always had mistakes.

I once explained how we had magnetic particle examination done to some of our equipment. It was reported as medical particle testing.
 
iwire said:
I used to work at a job where the media was often around and reporting on my place of employment. Sometimes I was directly involved and was shown on the local news a number of times. It always had mistakes.

I once explained how we had magnetic particle examination done to some of our equipment. It was reported as medical particle testing.
Click to expand...

:lol::lol:

At least that was just a typo.
 
mbrooke said:
:lol::lol:

At least that was just a typo.
Click to expand...

It was a TV reporter speaking to his audience after interviewing me.........:D

He had no clue at all about the subject he was sent to report.


Now it is possible he misheard me but we were talking about inanimate objects, if he thought I said 'medical' you would think he would have been puzzled enough to ask me to clarify it.
 
iwire said:
It was a TV reporter speaking to his audience after interviewing me.........:D

He had no clue at all about the subject he was sent to report.


Now it is possible he misheard me but we were talking about inanimate objects, if he thought I said 'medical' you would think he would have been puzzled enough to ask me to clarify it.
Click to expand...


Id think the same thing :lol: BTW, were those interviews for solar projects?
 
iwire said:
I used to work at a job where the media was often around and reporting on my place of employment. Sometimes I was directly involved and was shown on the local news a number of times. It always had mistakes.

I once explained how we had magnetic particle examination done to some of our equipment. It was reported as medical particle testing.
Click to expand...

I once read in a semi-technical journal a description of the difference between static and dynamic RAM. It said that the main difference was that dynamic RAM needed to be refreshed periodically and that was accomplished by blowing air over it. Copies of that were posted on bulletin boards all over the semiconductor company I was working for at the time. Either the journalist writing the article went off into the weeds on his own or an engineer he was consulting was having a little fun with him.
 
iwire said:
Yeah, let's not have the people who may have done the wiring do the investigating.


Seems like at some point lawyers for the boys family will have a field day shredding this investigations credibility.
Click to expand...

Yep wonder how many crimes would be brought to trial if we allowed the criminals do the investigating work:happysad:

Not saying that the high school electricians did the work, but I would believe in a high profile case like this a person who is not connected with this case is the one who should be doing the investigation, even the cities own inspectors have a interest if the findings can cost the city tax revenue and should not be a part of the investigation?

This reminds me of the Coka-Cola trailer incident where Coka-Cola was found negligent because it was determined that a ground rod would have prevented the person from being shocked, it was a very good example where they had no one on their side who understood that a ground rod would have not prevented the shock, even though it was admitted by the school that the EGC to the receptacle that the trailer was plugged into was not connected, I think I remember that it was the high school's electrician who made that determination on that case as well.

So sure keep letting the person who has an interest in the findings to cover his own butt by doing the investigation????:eek:
 
I would think it would be in best interest of both parties of any potential lawsuits to have a third independent investigation by someone that has experience in such investigations.

I myself could go there and look at some things and possibly come to some conclusion, but I don't do this kind of investigating on as important of a level as when someone was killed and certainly wouldn't want to overlook something or possibly damage some evidence and would rather have someone that does this kind of investigating regularly do what they are good at. I would much rather look at any evidence they bring up and use that information to make sure I don't make those same mistakes with my installations in the future.

If a credible investigator isn't utilized it may come back in future litigation and bite someone.
 
141110-2343 EDT

I have received an e-mail from a local newspaper writer relative to questions I ask. The essence of his response is that he has not been able to get information from the school.
You can certainly attempt to FOIA the records, but I know the school is going to deny them until the investigation is complete because they've denied my requests already.
Click to expand...
Some of the questions I ask were:
An overhead vertical photograh of the layout of where the boy was shocked. The same in a map drawing form with locations marked. I also asked about voltage measurements between various logical points with a high impedance meter and with a shunt load across the meter.

Within an hour or so after the incident a lot of useful information could have been obtained.

.
 
141111-1208 EDT

I believe the stadium in question is at 42.160558, -83.612185 and this point is very close to where the boy was shocked.

There appears to be a ramp and a close light pole. This satellite photo is from the east in late afternoon with the shadow falling directly east.

A fence on the west side of the ramp shows a shadow to the east on the ramp. Both the 20 and 50 ft scales provide good resolution.

There appear to be only two light poles close to the bleachers.

.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top