There, she saw a white SUV on the grass of a house. Water spewed from the broken hydrant – about 2,000 gallons per minute – and downed power lines carrying a charge of 4,800 volts lay along the ground, charging the water around the exposed wires.
he woman – who neighbors said was always the first to respond to a problem near their building – didn’t know the danger as she ran through the darkness to rescue the driver. As soon as her feet hit the water, she was electrocuted.
Motorists a few cars behind the crashed SUV also stopped to help.
Irma Zamora, 40, of Burbank, jumped out of her vehicle and ran to the crash while her husband called 911. She too was electrocuted.
Zamora’s husband then tried to pull his wife from the water but he was shocked every time he touched her. Bystanders had to restrain him from trying to pull her from the charged water, authorities said.
Firefighters had to pull the victims from the water with a fiberglass rake that does not conduct electricity, said LAFD Capt. Jaime Moore.
Pretty horrible. Do we REALLY need electricity polls that cars can ram into? How about cars at all?
Really this is what we would be talking about if those that used “Gun Death” had any constancy.
h/t Farm Dad
Good grief. Where’s the common sense? If the IBEW didn’t have a stranglehold on our politicians, maybe we could have sensible laws about electricity and water.
Money quote:
Anyone want to bet the “solution” that’s supposed to “demand responsibility” is … hold your breath … another law? Not like they don’t have laws against driving too fast or too recklessly already, which don’t do a damn thing unless a police office is right there. But this one will be different. It’s common sense and For the Children!
In all seriousness, my thoughts and prayers to the Good Samaritans and their families.
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People don’t get educated properly about how fucking dangerous electricity is.
I got exposed to a slide presentation by a PGE safety manager as part of 4H classes … and it saved my life when some dumbass killed himself by accidentally using a backhoe to ground an underground power line against the bottom of the pre-fab metal guard shack I was in.
I spent two hours perched on top of a wooden stool on a rubber floor mat waiting for them to turn the damned power off.
I want to see the results of the electricity poll. Obviously it will take a long time to tabulate the results since the questionnaire is large enough for cars to slam into and be damaged.
Or was it “pole”?