Two men electrocuted.

[loodvig]

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. -- Two men were electrocuted Wednesday when they apparently cut through a high-voltage wire outside a vacant factory at an industrial park in Tyngsborough, police said.

The men got inside a fence securing electric supply equipment and "they cut a line they thought was grounded, but it was live and had 13,000 volts going through it," Tyngsborough acting police chief Richard Burrows said.

Police identified one of the men as Roland Farland, 58, of Nashua, N.H. They said they were still attempting to identify the second man.

"The reason for the individuals being in that electrical facility is not clear," National Grid spokeswoman Debbie Drew said. She said they were not employed by the utility company or its contractors.

Police said in a statement that some freshly cut wire was found in a pile near a truck that belonged to one of the victims.

Drew said the factory at 65 Middlesex Road once housed Hussey Plastic Manufacturers.


http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO47285/

The above link also has a short video. These 2 were stealing copper! They found a pile of copper next to a pickup truck. It started with a no power call so something opened up.

[Orgnizdlbr]

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. -- Two men were electrocuted Wednesday when they apparently cut through a high-voltage wire outside a vacant factory at an industrial park in Tyngsborough, police said.

The men got inside a fence securing electric supply equipment and "they cut a line they thought was grounded, but it was live and had 13,000 volts going through it," Tyngsborough acting police chief Richard Burrows said.

Police identified one of the men as Roland Farland, 58, of Nashua, N.H. They said they were still attempting to identify the second man.

"The reason for the individuals being in that electrical facility is not clear," National Grid spokeswoman Debbie Drew said. She said they were not employed by the utility company or its contractors.

Police said in a statement that some freshly cut wire was found in a pile near a truck that belonged to one of the victims.

Drew said the factory at 65 Middlesex Road once housed Hussey Plastic Manufacturers.


http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO47285/

The above link also has a short video. These 2 were steeling copper! They found a pile of copper next to a pickup truck. It started with a no power call so something opened up.

Expensive copper......

[tramp67]

I didn't realize the penalty for stealing in Mass. was the electric chair!:eek:

[loodvig]

TYNGSBORO -- It was 2:58 p.m. Wednesday, and Tyngsboro firefighters were on a routine call for a fire alarm triggered inside a water tank at the former Hussey Plastics factory on Middlesex Road.

About 20 yards from the tank, in a fenced-off area marked with "high voltage" signs, they discovered the bodies.

Roland Farland, 58, of 44 Lynn St., Nashua, and Gary S. Rich, 42, whose last known address was Manchester, N.H., were laying near two transformers surrounded by a chain-link fence. Rich's identity was not released until Thursday morning.

Firefighters could not immediately approach the men because of electrical danger. It wasn't until National Grid workers cut power to the transformers that emergency crews and police could confirm that the men were dead, and begin an investigation.

The men were found about 30 yards from the large water tank where the fire alarm had gone off, apparently triggered when one of them took bolt cutters to a wire that carried about 13,000 volts of electricity, according to Acting Police Chief Richard Burrows.

Burrows said Thursday morning that although the investigation is ongoing, the deaths appear to be accidental.

The owner of the industrial building at 65 Middlesex Road, abandoned for several years now, confirmed that the men were not authorized to be on the site, Burrows said.

A building caretaker had been at the scene until 2 p.m., and saw nothing, Burrows said.

"We spoke to the property owner and they were not authorized to be here," Burrows said. "They don't appear to be electricians either."

The suspicious circumstances in which the men were found, along with a freshly cut pile of wire near the pickup truck they drove there, have police investigating whether the men may have been trying to steal copper wire, Burrows said.

Neither man wore any protective gear for such an operation.

"There's a piece of the fence that was pulled back to gain access," he said.

To a layman, the wire that was cut could appear to be a ground wire that would carry no electricity in most electrical setups, Burrows said. In the industrial complex, though, it was part of an electrical system and transformer that a professional would easily recognize as dangerous.

"If you weren't an electrician, you wouldn't think it was hot," Burrows said of the wire.

It was not immediately clear why both men were killed, or if one tried to save the other from the deadly current, only to be shocked himself.

Burrows said state police detectives with Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone's office, along with the state medical examiner's office, will try to determine that.

The bodies were taken by the medical examiner's office, which will conduct autopsies.

Police also towed a gray Ford Ranger pickup with New Hampshire handicapped license plates from the scene. Burrows said freshly cut wire was found in a pile near that truck, which belonged to one of the victims.

The truck had an orange emergency light atop its cab, but no other markings to indicate it belongs to any kind of business.

[WAlinehand1970]

I didn't realize the penalty for stealing in Mass. was the electric chair!:eek:

Now that's funny, i dont care who u are.
Darwin's theory at work again.

[thrasher]

I read a book several years ago that had one of the most appropriate lines ever in it. After someone had died doing something particularly dumb the main character said "Think of it as evolution in action".

[PA BEN]

Must have openened the neutral to the transformer bank!!!:eek: Here at our utility we've had pole ground wires cut as far as someone could reach from the ground, 69KV switch ground wires cut. Another uitlity over here has had gound grids in subststions pulled out with a pickup. It's getting bad, so watch yourselves.

[loodvig]

Same here. We had a sub that took a lightning hit and the arestors did nothing. After looking around they found most of the ground grid was missing!

[Genoin NW]

We too have lost our ground mats in our subs due to thefts. We watch our butts constantly! Think of these two idiots as God culling the herd!

[PSE Lineman]

should ape burned"First of all , I'm really sorry to hear about anyone getting hurt. Like everyone knows , it never should have happened. Here in Northwest Washington we have spacing at 8 feet one inch from primary to neutral with the BOTTOM xfmr one to 2 feet above the neutral. The neut is also where the triplex is deadended. The xfmr leads are cut 2 feet longer than the can. All secondary work is that far from the high side of the can. What , 4 to 5 feet? 15 kva is the shortest and 100's and 167's the tallest. We also have cutouts on EVERY xfmr out there. As I drive around the west coast , I see some neutrals on a bracket away from the pole about 2 feet below the primary and around the top of the can. As far as I can tell , this is not un common. But , is that why the ape got between the high side and the neut with bolt cutters?
Second , the glove issue. We wear our rubbers for 4KV. We have no glove laws that let us glove anything higher than 4KV. No one wants that here. We use sticks or kill it , period. We only use our gloves for safety when in our opinion we need to or see something that looks like it may get into it.
Third. I read about supervisors should be held accountable. Accountable for what? Are they out there with you telling you to do things that you wouldn't do otherwise? Around here the foreman is directly responsable for the entire crew. They have documented tailboards everyday every jobsite. When an accident happens , you can't just blame a supervisor. If you don't like where you work , just look at the job postings on this site and you can go where the grass is greener. That's just my opinion and thank you for letting me rant.

[BigClive]

It's sad when people die, but they were stealing part of an active electrical installation and were killed as a result of what they were doing.

I'm not sure how copper prices are doing in the USA, but here in the UK they had an upward blip during the panic about a copper shortage then fell back to normal levels again.

Methinks there's a bit of price manipulation going on and perhaps these deaths have been caused by the creation of a falsely high price for copper.

[PA BEN]

Copper is about $2.50 a lb. It's mostly meth heads stealing it to pay for there meth. We've had new homes going up and all the new copper wireing stolen, copper plumbing, if it's copper they steal it for drugs.:mad:

[BigClive]

Maybe it's the scrap companies that convert the fresh copper to cash that should be targeted by the law enforcement agencies.