Family and friends are mourning the loss of a Nelson teenager, who died yesterday after receiving an electric shock from a 33,000-volt power line two weeks ago.
Katia Birchfield, 16, had been in intensive care at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital with massive injuries and burns since suffering the incident at Nelson Electricity substation on October 21.
She was found after police received calls from the public of a person hanging from power lines with their clothes alight at Hastings Street substation about 10.50pm.
Constable Vaughan Joyce said when emergency services arrived, they found the seriously injured girl lying beneath the lines.
She was taken to Nelson Hospital, but transferred to Auckland that night.
Nelson Electricity general manager Phil Goodall said it appeared that, once inside the substation, she had climbed a 10m pole before getting hooked up in the wire and receiving a electric shock before falling to the ground.
How and why she scaled the pylon remains a mystery.
