From khl@carfax.ims.advantis.comMon Apr 21 10:07:29 1997 Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:36:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "Kenneth H. Lee" To: Henry Farkas , Joshua Danowitz Cc: Charlie Bridges , "Kathryn (Kaysee) Long" , Richard Begley Subject: Fwd: FW: Darwin (fwd) =============================================================================== Kenneth H Lee | Ph: 914 899 4712, T/L 566 Advantis | Fax: 914 899 4555, T/L 566 500 Mamaroneck Avenue | khl@ims.advantis.com, khl@vnet.ibm.com Harrison, NY 10528 | rhqvm21(kennethl) PGP fingerprint 46 77 87 0B F9 CE 4A 94 F9 E0 0C E0 71 96 95 C6 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- So you think you are having a bad day. Check this recent nominee for the Darwin award (Darwin awards are given to people who improve the gene pool by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way). We have many transmission lines that crisscross the state. These are held up by Transmission Towers of different construction. Near most urban areas these are normally "metal Ornamental Towers" (they are supposed to be prettier than wood towers). Sometimes we have folks who feel it would be nice to climb these towers and enjoy the night air. Most enjoy their view, stay away from the wires, and when they get bored, come back down. Well this is a story of a fella who was a little despondent over a recent fight with a girlfriend and decided he needed a little fresh air to clear his head. He proceeded to climb a tower south of Hartford next to I-91. Before he got to his tower though he decided to stop for a 6 pack to help clear his thoughts. Here our "Darwin Award winner-to-be" sits 60 feet above the highway, drinking his beer, consoling his bruised ego. Our friend had 5 beers when he decided he needed the services of a men's room. It being of such a long hike down, he unzips and decides to do his business right there off the tower. Electricity is a funny thing. You don't need to touch a wire in order to get shocked. On these 15,000 volt lines depending on the conditions, you could be as far away as 6' and still get shocked. Well, our friend proceeded to "whiz" near the conductor (wire) when the power arced to his "stream" (salt water is a most excellent conductor of electricity) followed up to his private parts and blew him off the tower. The utility company had a momentary outage on this line and sent workmen to see if there was any damage. When the guys got to the scene of the accident, they found a very dead person, his fly down, what was left of his private parts smoking and a single beer left on top of the tower.