SALEM - A man was electrocuted and burned beyond recognition after he apparently broke into a power substation attempting to take copper wiring.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said that his office received a call at about 9 p.m. reporting suspicious activity near the substation, which is on Highway 280 in Salem, near the Dudley Lumber Company.
Jones said callers indicated they saw a man near the station and then saw sparks.
"We had units dispatched to the scene to check on a suspicious person call," Jones said "After arriving on the scene they located a man on top of one of the transformers. The man was deceased and was burned beyond recognition."
Jones said electrical substations are very secure, with three strands of barbed wire topping a high fence to keep people from entering. The lone access gate at power substations are locked as standard procedure.
"It appears as though the station was locked securely, but officers found a pair of bolt cutters inside," Jones said. "The lock had been cut and copper wire was found cut and dislodged. We don"t know all the details, but it appears as though this individual may have been trying to steal copper wire from the substation when he became entangled in live wires."
Theft of copper wire has become a problem on construction sites as prices for scrap wire has reached near the $1 per pound plateau, but entering an area that was charged with high voltage was deadly, Jones said
Jones said officials on the scene were unable to identify the deceased man because he was burned so badly and did not have any information if he was from the local area.
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May 30, 3:11 am my little girl was born.
His family will sue and win millions for the electrical company not doing more to prevent him from trying to steal from them - you wait and see [:@]
I was just thinking the same thing.....they didn't have enought warnings all around with armed guards and vicious attack dogs, 24 hours a day, to prevent people from disobeying the law to break in and try to steal what is not rightfully theirs !!!!
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It' s a dog eat dog world, and I' m wearing Milkbone underwear
That reminds me of the guy I stopped to help along the road a few years ago. He had his hood up and he'd found a cat, quite deceased, on his engine. He tried to grab it by the leg to remove it and instead only removed the leg.
Alabama~ too dumb for words.......
