A man suspected of trying to steal copper wiring is in a serious condition in hospital after he was electrocuted while cutting live power lines in Northland.
The injured 18-year-old from Ruawai was collected from a rural property near Tinopai by a policeman alerted to the incident about 3pm on Friday.
The teenager was taken by ambulance to a nearby sports field where volunteer firefighters helped load him into the Northland Electricity rescue helicopter. He suffered a serious burn on his right arm.
He was flown to Whangarei Hospital and on Sunday transferred to Middlemore Hospital in Auckland.
Northpower public affairs manager Steve Macmillan said a 400-volt line was cut, which caused the tripping of the 11,000-volt line to Tinopai.
A transformer pole on a roadside reserve had been climbed and the wires cut. It is believed the man suffered chest and spinal fractures when he fell from the pole.
St John officials said there was an entry and exit wound on the man's arm where he had been electrocuted.
"Whoever was responsible is extremely lucky to be alive as 400 volts is easily enough to kill a person - let alone 11,000 volts,'' Mr Macmillan said.
"This kind of incident is exactly why we put out a safety warning a couple of weeks back. We can't stress enough what a dangerous activity playing with powerlines is.''
He warned people to stay away from live lines and treat all powerlines as live at all times - even if they were down.
"It's common sense,'' he said.
Dargaville police Detective Sergeant Jonathan Tier said police were investigating the alleged attempted theft of copper wiring. No charges had been laid yet.
Northpower is appealing to scrap metal dealers to inform police if they are suspicious of people offering copper for sale.
Over the past few weeks copper has been stolen from a string of other locations across the region.
- The Northern Advocate
