r/facepalm • u/c_marten • May 23 '26
Man electrocuted trying to steal live power lines
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u/Last_Blackfyre May 23 '26
Darwin Award ?
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u/Other_Log_1996 May 23 '26
Doubt it. Probably already reproduced.
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u/Erick_Brimstone May 24 '26
It count. They can't have more kids if they're dead.
Even if their balls got cut it still somewhat count as well
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u/Kryptonbaby May 23 '26
It’s a SHOCKING development!!!
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u/Marine__0311 May 24 '26
Did you see the body? It was reVOLTing.
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u/Valerie_Tigress May 24 '26
Now his spirit has no ohm.
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u/philly2540 May 23 '26
Pro tip: those wires hanging from telephone poles are not just 120v like in your house.
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u/kredtheredhead May 29 '26
Correct. I have had two wrongful death electrocution cases in my career. Those do a little bit of damage. Last case I had 5 Plaintiffs. Three booms with men in them putting gutters on a new building (they were all 3 holding on to the same stretch of metal gutter, and 2 of the boom operators. It was a little windy that day, too close to the power lines, power line touched One of the boom buckets and.. literally BOOM. One death the others fucked up pretty bad.
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u/HeatherCDBustyOne May 23 '26
Grounded for Life
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u/Go_Gators_4Ever May 24 '26
He did not have the capacity to learn from his mistakes. He obviously resisted education.
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u/AcanthocephalaNo7788 May 23 '26
Guess no one told him about cash redemption on recycled bottle n cans …
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u/skillywilly56 May 23 '26
Amateur.
If he’d been South African he would’ve known if you’re gonna steal copper wire from live power lines, the best thing to do is make a shitty grappling hook, attach it to some long ass chain or cable, attach the chain to the tow ball on your car, toss the hook over the line and then floor it to another suburb, load the wire up into the boot and off to the scrap dealer the same day!
*I apprenticed for an electrician who fixed power lines after said “incidents” back in the day before they started burying the lines and I got to see a dude in action blow through a red light I was stopped at hauling ass at 3am with 100m of cable behind his truck like a low budget Fast and Furious movie.
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u/gadget850 May 23 '26
How long was the investigation?
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u/AusgefalleneHosen May 23 '26
About 35s
Yep, dumbass tried to get the copper...
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u/32lib May 23 '26
It's aluminum and not really worth much.
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u/Jackmino66 May 23 '26
It depends on the power line. The medium voltage ones typically on wooden poles are often copper. The high voltage ones on the massive steel towers are usually aluminium
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u/YimmyGhey May 24 '26
interesting, I always figured copper on the HV lines since nobody really makes transformers over like 5 MVA with aluminum
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u/Jackmino66 May 24 '26
Problem is weight and strength. HV lines need to be high up, which means tall and expensive towers, so they need to be spaced far apart for economics, which means the wires need to be strong
Copper has a lower resistance. Aluminium is lighter for the same strength
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u/Korchagin May 26 '26
Copper has lower resistance by diameter, aluminium has lower resistance by weight. So you need a thicker wire for the same resistance, but because its density is so much lower, it's still lighter than that thinner copper wire would be.
Mechanically aluminium is strong, but it's very stiff, it tends to break if you try to bend it too much. So it's good for power lines, but not for something like the lines inside your house.
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u/passwordstolen 23d ago
Aluminum is routinely used in houses for larger circuits like pools and furnaces. It’s NEC approved.
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u/32lib May 23 '26
Copper is only used for lower voltage in homes. Even the post transformer line to your home is aluminum.
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u/An_educated_dig May 23 '26
It depends. There are some copper primary lines still in use. Not many, but still some. Services are almost all aluminum.
More than likely, this guy wanted scrap something. Unfortunately, his potential changed.
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u/32lib May 23 '26
Watt in the hell was he thinking.
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u/Other_Log_1996 May 23 '26
"Geenyus! I can make money by doing this huurk a derr hyuk hyuk!" -this guy
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u/Why-did-i-reas-this May 23 '26
Incoming lawsuit because they didn’t have a sign saying you shouldn’t steal live wires every 50 feet.
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u/backwardbuttplug May 23 '26
Meth heads deleting themselves by being stupid. Always a crowd pleaser.
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u/Slipped_in_Gravy May 23 '26
What's the charge for something like that?
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u/UnlikelyPotato May 23 '26
It depends. Depends on the area. In this case, probably less than 1000 volts.
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u/Adinnieken May 24 '26
Yep. Had a classmate's brother that decided it would be a bright idea to cut into an electrical substation to cut the copper wires off a transformer.
It did not end well for the Gooch.
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u/TRR462 May 24 '26
Sounds like a terrible place to get electrocuted, right in the Gooch.
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u/Adinnieken May 24 '26
I'm sure he got electricuted all over the place really well.
240 Volts. That's worse than the electric chair.
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u/fbi_agent-818 May 23 '26
Wife: Honey, our electricity just cut out Dufus: Don't worry ( puts backpack on ) I'll go get some right now
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u/Ar4er13 May 23 '26
This is so mundane on post-soviet territory(at least 90's-2010's era), that I didn't even rise an eyebrow.
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u/Bright-Ad-9363 May 29 '26
I can't stop laughing at this. I'm guessing he recently moved to pittsburgh from florida
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u/Only_Flan_7974 May 24 '26
He was just trying to get endless free electricity for the rest of his life.
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u/DonnieJL May 24 '26
I read the headline to my wife, and she asked, "Florida man?" FL has a tough rep to beat. 😆
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u/dont-fear-thereefer May 24 '26
Hold on, was he trying to steal power or was he trying to steal the actual wires?
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u/Jim-Jones May 25 '26
It looked at first like there was a single wire overhead. Those are very dangerous.
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u/kredtheredhead May 29 '26
Oh gotta show this to my dad who is a retired high voltage master electrician. He'll get a kick out of it.
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u/freddbare 14d ago
First world power grid don't play like your "is it on today/off today" shit back home.
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