Ready, Aim, Uh oh...
 

Wash. man electrocuted by urinating on power line:

MONTESANO, Wash. (AP) - Authorities believe a Washington man was killed by accidentally urinating on a downed power line after a car crash.

Grays Harbor County sheriff's Deputy Dave Pimentel (PIM'-en-tel) said Monday 50-year-old Roy Messenger was not seriously hurt after he collided with a power pole Friday and called a relative to pull his car from a ditch.

However, family members found Messenger electrocuted when they arrived.

Pimentel says Messenger apparently urinated into a roadside ditch but didn't see the live wire. The urine stream likely served as a conductor, allowing the electricity to reach his body.

Pimentel says there will be an autopsy but burn marks indicated the way the electricity traveled through Messenger's body.

What a way to go.

Don't cross the streams, indeed.

How do they know he didn't see the wire?

"County Coroner Dr. Pasacaglia has ruled the death a suicide."

I guess the sentence should have read:

Pimentel says Messenger urinated into a roadside ditch but apparently didn't see the live wire.

How exactly is it suicide when he did not purposely do it?

"Don't Wizz on the Electric Fence"

I'm looking forward to seeing this reenacted on 1000 Ways To Die.

tell you what, if that kind of voltage had gone up to my body through that conduit, I wouldn't want to survive either... ouch.

FM

This happened to my dog a few weeks ago. Luckily, for him it wasn't a high power line. I was taking him for his morning walk. We walk through a little downtown area and there are christmas lights wrapped around all the trees. It was pretty early and still dark, so the lights were still on. Being a dog, he walked over to one of the trees, lifted his leg and did his thing. Apparently the plug must have not been in all the way and he let out a yelp and jumped way, tail tucked, ears down.

He was a little shaken by it, as he kept looking back over his shoulder to see just what the hell happened. He seemed to have recovered by the end of the block.

I saw this situation debunked on Mythbusters, but they did a retest and they considered it "plausible".

He must have had a lot to drink to generate a solid enough stream for the electricity to pass through.

This was exactly my thought. Mythbusters demonstrated that unless you had an unbroken stream, it wouldn't happen, and it's difficult to have enough force for a continuous stream. Yes, it happens. But it's hella rare.

/tk

maybe Im missing something here, or maybe it is an inherent difference between sexes, but I dont think I have ever had a broken stream, and if I did I would be at the doc getting checked for prostate probs ASAP....

I think if you had a slo-mo view, you'd see that it really isn't continuous.

I would assume it's categorized as a suicide, whether it's accidental or not?

Suicide needs to include the intent to kill oneself.

Shouldn't the title be "Ready, Aim, BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!"

Actually... my original title was going to be "Now That's A Pisser"...

Ugh, talk about having a burning sensation when urinating.

way to piss away your life, dude.

If you google "mythbusters third rail" you'll see the conclusion they came to. Long and short, it's not really continuous, except close to the source (as Kodos says here). To die from electrocution by peeing on a third rail (like on a metro), you need to get prohibitively close to the rail to ensure the continuity of the stream. They did show it was easier to get close enough to an electric fence. At the end of the day, proximity is the key...

/tk