09-09-2005, 11:35 PM
And the gene pool is a little cleaner:
Quote: One man was killed and another hospitalized early Friday morning after trying to steal a power cable, Fife police said.
Sergeant Tony Budzius said the two men were likely hoping to sell parts of the cable as scrap metal.
The man was electrocuted about 1:30 a.m. when the two threw a rope over the raised power line and tried to pull it down.
Budzius said the pair thought the line was a low-voltage wire, but it was actually a high-voltage line. "Roughly 12,500 volts," he said.
The electricity traveled down the rope, through the men and into the ground where it sparked a fire in the dry brush. Fife police officers responding to reports of a fire in the area found the two men in the bushes.
The officers performed CPR on one man but were unable to revive him. The other man suffered electrical burns to his hands and feet and was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The fire scorched about an acre of brush and Tacoma firefighters spent two hours extinguishing hot spots.
Budzius said the police department has received numerous reports of power cable thefts in the area where the men were found on 70th Avenue East. "People are scavenging the copper wire off the railroad property," he said. The name of the man who was killed has not been released.
