Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Police have identifed the man who was electrocuted while allegedly trying to steal copper from a Hydro One transformer station.
Police said Monday that Michael Mawhinney, 38, died Saturday night after trying to steal copper from the hydro station at Walker and Grand Marais roads.
Mawhinney was shocked after climbing the barbed wire fence of the transformer station, police said. He died in hospital following the jolt, which happened at 9:14 p.m. and caused a four-minute power outage in the area. A Hydro One worker investigating the outage called 911 after finding Mawhinney underneath the transformer.
Ed McNorton said police are increasingly seeing people take big risks to get copper and other metals as they become more valuable, whether it's stealing from someone's garbage, climbing into a transformer station or taking the wire off towering power lines.
"You never really know what's live and not live," he said. "When you start dealing with electricity, you're just asking for trouble."
Hydro One spokeswoman Laura Cooke said copper theft costs her company $1 million a year.
McNorton said that as far as he knows, this was first time someone in Windsor died trying to get copper wire. In Southeast Michigan, seven people died in 2007 trying to steal wire from DTE Energy power lines. Despite the dangers, DTE sees several hundred thefts each year.
"We have people climbing our poles, taking live power lines," said DTE spokesman Scott Simons. "It's just incredibly dangerous."
He said the metals are most often sold to scrap dealers. Other times, people will do a straight trade for drugs.
A woman who identified herself as a relative of Mawhinney said she believes he was desperate enough to try stealing copper.
She said Mawhinney had a job at Ford, but it dried up a few years ago.
She said he leaves behind a seven-year-old son named Reily.
Mawhinney moved here from Hamilton about 15 years ago with his brother Mark. The transformer station where he died is right next to the tracks where Mark was hit by a train in 2004 near the intersection of Walker and Grand Marais. Mark barely survived with internal injuries, a broken neck, arm, leg, ribs and pelvis.
The relative said Mark went back to Hamilton after the accident and Michael returned for a while to care for him.