DoctorBlade
DoctorBlade HalfDork
6/13/11 7:20 p.m.

Shocked!

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) - A man was electrocuted Sunday night in Madison County while, police suspect, he was attempting to steal copper wire

Seems like he survived to learn his lesson.

AngryCorvair
AngryCorvair GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
6/13/11 7:35 p.m.

unfortunately the lesson he's going to learn is "how to be comfortable on a ten-digit income from the utility company after receiving third degree burns trying to steal live copper wires"

NGTD
NGTD HalfDork
6/13/11 7:52 p.m.

I have seen pictures of a guy that contacted a 44kV bus bar while trying to steel copper. Not nice and not alive.

mad_machine
mad_machine GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
6/13/11 7:56 p.m.

People take some really weird risks to steal stuff. When I worked for my Uncle taking care of his apartment building.. we got a call about a hose hanging out of one of the windows.. when we got there to look.. it ran down to the gasmetre in the basement.

Guy had his gas cut off.. so he severed the pipe to his metre, hoseclamped a garden hose to it.. and ran that up the outside of the building to his stove so he could cook...

DoctorBlade
DoctorBlade HalfDork
6/13/11 8:06 p.m.
mad_machine wrote: Guy had his gas cut off.. so he severed the pipe to his metre, hoseclamped a garden hose to it.. and ran that up the outside of the building to his stove so he could cook...

Wow. Um... it didn't go "boom"? He's lucky.

cwh
cwh SuperDork
6/13/11 10:09 p.m.

There is a butt load of that going on down here. Big thing now is back flow valves. Hack them off, full flow water goes all over the place until somebody comes to shut it off. Last week I sold some stuff to a plumbing contractor. He had 11 to take care of the day. For 10.00 worth of brass?

gamby
gamby SuperDork
6/13/11 10:18 p.m.
NGTD wrote: I have seen pictures of a guy that contacted a 44kV bus bar while trying to steel copper. Not nice and not alive.

Yeah, that was probably pretty ugly

RexSeven
RexSeven SuperDork
6/13/11 11:22 p.m.
gamby wrote:
NGTD wrote: I have seen pictures of a guy that contacted a 44kV bus bar while trying to steel copper. Not nice and not alive.
Yeah, that was probably pretty ugly

Saw a similar video of some guy in India grabbing the overhead wire that supplies power to the train he was climbing on top of. All you saw was a big puff of smoke and the guy slowly collapse to his death. Scary E36 M3.

Greg Voth
Greg Voth HalfDork
6/14/11 12:33 a.m.

I have a loss I am adjusting now where a guy scaled a warehouse up a propane supply pump to raid five 50 ton rooftop AC units. Cut them up and threw the stuff down to his buddy. $325k-$350k of damage for maybe a couple grand in scrap.

Scary part was that the propane pipe entered the building about 4 feet short of the roof. So he had to stand on top of that to jump up and then lower himself to it from the roof to get down.

mad_machine
mad_machine GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
6/14/11 12:45 a.m.
RexSeven wrote: Saw a similar video of some guy in India grabbing the overhead wire that supplies power to the train he was climbing on top of. All you saw was a big puff of smoke and the guy slowly collapse to his death. Scary E36 M3.

An ex-boss of mine tells a story. Back when he was a teen, he and a friend climbed aboard the roof of a trolly. His buddy was wearing a nice watch and the power from the overhead wire arched to it when he got to close. Left a VERY nice scar all around his wrist

Cole_Trickle
Cole_Trickle Reader
6/14/11 6:56 a.m.

I just heard a story about guys stealing copper from a school under construction. They stole 20k worth of it the first time. The builders responded by locking the copper in a steel crate. The thieves ripped the doors off and stole another 30k in copper pipe and fittings.

People be crazy.

mad_machine
mad_machine GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
6/14/11 7:05 a.m.
DoctorBlade wrote:
mad_machine wrote: Guy had his gas cut off.. so he severed the pipe to his metre, hoseclamped a garden hose to it.. and ran that up the outside of the building to his stove so he could cook...
Wow. Um... it didn't go "boom"? He's lucky.

we walked in.. saw what he had done.. and A: Evacuated all the residents B: Called the gas company C: Called the cops..

All ended well, except for Mr gas theif going to jail

You'll need to log in to post.

Our Preferred Partners
2xh3fdAC4NGl8lGaOkN26cL38vnwqu6A5UIQsF5tmQRvORnaMyrsKsmHDU7d4Mo1