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A Canadian woman whose 9-year-old son tunneled into an electric sub-station and was badly burned is suing a Manitoba power utility for negligence.
The unidentified boy was one of four children who couldn’t get through a locked gate or over a high fence surrounding the transformer on May 29, 2006, so they dug a tunnel beneath the fence. The boy touched a live wire and was thrown 15 feet into the air and landed with extensive burns to his upper body.
The mother’s lawsuit alleges Manitoba Hydro was “aware of the inherent dangers connected with the power transformer … and in particular, the danger of allowing the site, which was alluring to children, to be accessed by them,” the report said.
The suit contends the boy was left with severe scarring and mental impairment.
The boy is also left with a mother who never taught him not to perform stupid self-destructive acts.
“The suit contends the boy was left with severe scarring and mental impairment.”
The latter condition can surely be argued as pre-existing.
Dangerous attractions need to be defensively built to withstand childrens’ curiosity. I think a fence and signs meets that requirement.
The fence continuing down into the ground past a normal footer would not cost much to install but is not warranted as shown by this case.
An obvious socio-path has been nipped in the bud.
The kid was stupid, and is lucky he got away with just burns. The fence was in place, with big warning signs, and the kid had to go through allot of effort to get in, by tunneling under the fence no less.
The power company did all they reasonably could to secure the site. Could they have done more? Sure, they could have pounded metal footer 4 feet into the ground and build a cage over the substation, with guard towers, and robot dogs, but this isn’t a prison is a substation. Warning signs are in place, and anyone trying to get in has to make a pretty concerted effort to get in. Sounds like the kids mother is more to blame here, since she apparently didn’t teach her kid that going into an area with hundreds of thousands of volts is not a good idea.
Same sorta crap happened in Rancho Cordova, CA, about 20 years ago. Kid climbed over a 10-foot fence and got burned. They sued. SMUD lost. Now the fence is 15 feet tall.
Why does the child and parents responsibility end when they do something stupid. I hate seeing kids hurt, but I’ll bet no other kid in his class or school tried because of his actions.
I think they should just ban electricity. And kids.
Actually, they could have electrified the fence and saved the kid a lot of trouble. ;}
Manitoba Hydro should sue the mother for damage to their facility. As #1 stated, the kid was damaged before the incident. Let’s hope that the shock got to his gonads and made him sterile.
This portends the end of western civilization.
Why can’t we let children learn that there are consequences for their actions? Stop protecting them. I learned many a hard lesson. But, I grew up 40 years ago.
I blame all this on the self esteem emphasis in schools. Some people should not be surgeons or design bridges. Sorry to break it to some of you….
Many of my students cannot handle failure.
I’d certainly hope that the power company will be able to show in court that putting up a large fence and signage would be plenty to avoid any claim of negligence on their parts.
As for the kid … perhaps Darwin was wrong afterall. He survived and may yet reproduce.
As for the photo, very cute cat, but what is the relevance to the story?
I think they should argue that the electric shock is part of their defense system for dealing with people who trespass on their property.
Wow… when I think back on all the stupid s**t me, my brother, and my cousins used to do as kids it is amazing that are parents aren’t millionaires. One of us kids was always being taken to the emergency room at least once a month to be patched or stitched up after doing something stupid involving speed, gravity, tools, weapons, or explosives [or on a good weekend, all of the above 🙂 ].
And at the time, our parents, and the hospital ER staff who knew ours mothers well, just wrote it off as “boys will be boys”. No one called CPS. No one called a lawyer. We were usually grounded for a while and had so suffer our injuries without being coddled.
Amazingly, we are all still alive. Even after my cousin decided to toss a lit match into a gas can to see of they really would explode (they do).
Lets see,
WHAT could they do, to discourage a 9 year old from TRYING to find out about electricity?
“Kid, here’s a fork. Got stick it in the outlet”
“Push harder”
BLINK go the lights…
WAAAAHH goes the kid..
And I dont think you would have a problem after that.
OR find an electric fence, and let the kid PISS on it…THEn explain to him WHY he is 10 feet away.
Thinking back to when I grew up, yes I knew a kid who lost an eye to a pellet gun.
I knew of some older kids that were killed by drinking and driving.
I knew a girl that spited her parents and ran off with a guy only to come back pregnant and wearing a black eye.
I knew a kid in grade 7 that hit a teacher and was expelled.
I knew a kid who’s teacher had hit him and boy was my mom mad.
I knew a kid who got piled on and broke his arm in a pick-up football game.
I knew a kid who was hit in the face with a baseball and broke his cheek.
I knew a kid who fell off the roof of an abandoned house and broke his foot.
I knew a girl that was bitten by a neighbors dog. The details are a little sketchy.
I knew several guys who all came down with a venereal disease just after their girl friends started calling a cheerleader a slut.
I knew guys that raced home made engine less go-carts down long hills. Without brakes.
I knew guys that would bet on how high gasoline flames would reach.
But damn, they has barbed wire around the electrical towers and transformers. We accepted that as a good keep out sign.
Dumb kid.
I agree the power company is at fault for not installing perimeter defense. He should have been snuffed out like a cigarette butt way before he got that close.
#16, Ed,
That is a little harsh. Couldn’t they just deport him to Wasilla or something?
#9
As for the photo, very cute cat, but what is the relevance to the story?
Curiosity killed the cat? (fortunately, not this time)
If that kid’s mother didn’t beat him silly, I have no sympathy for either of them. If you can’t learn to take responsibility for yourself, you will go no where in life.
The power station was very “alluring to children”.
Dammit when will those irresponsible electric companies stop putting up “Free Candy” signs on the outside of electric sub-stations?
There is one 100% way to stop all these bull *rap law suits. When there is a court hearing everybody has to swear to tell the truth BUT the LAWYER!!
Imagine all the frivolous law suits that will stop.
In Philadelphia, a mother killed her child and then sued child services for $50,000. She felt that was what the child’s life was worth.
Her attorney was told off by the DA, Mayor, and The Judge.
Just curious how long it took the 4 kids to tunnel under the fence; few minutes, couple of hours, or the better part of a day?
And how dreary and boring is the area if a fenced in electrical substation looks “alluring” to children.
#17 – Well yeah, harsh I guess. A good tasering may have sufficed.
The kid needs to be put in foster care until the mother gets out of jail in few months.
That’s what I hate when you hear about all of these silly lawsuits. You hear about it initially getting filed, but you never hear what the final resolution is. I know a lot of times it gets settled out of court with the details being made secret. I hope this one gets thrown out with the plaintiff having to pay the defendants legal fees.
The sad part of this story is that the little ***hole may yet get a chance to breed. That’s the real crime here.
Don
#1 – “The latter condition can surely be argued as pre-existing.”
BRILLIANT!
What’s the photo got to do with the story? Tunneling, I guess…
Like Mr. Fusion #14 I have to admit to a lot of stupid things include my “friend” that light my corduroys on fire severely burning my leg, dropping .22 bullets off the roof of 7-11 to see if they could go bang (they didn’t… neither do .45 fyi, although I was there for that experiment), trying to see if the petrol bombs the showed on the news work (they do, and they can burn your neighbour’s garage down if you aren’t careful), pounding ‘screechers’ with a hammer then lighting them so they go off with bang (they do), “bum boarder” (sktaeboarding sitting down) down long steep hills with no breaks wearing only flip-flops, not to mention the usual shenanigans involving five-finger discounts, vandalism, etc.
But I have to admit, breaking into power stations was way, way beyond any of the stupidity we’d consider!
#18—The cat in the clothes hangers is a metaphor for the news story. Just like how each of us wants to get through the “cage” created by the clothes hangers to pet the kitty, so too does the kid do whatever he can to pet the transformer.
Going down a steep hill on a sled, and finding I have NO CONTROL on ICE..
SLAMMING head first into a telephone pole…
OUT for 3 days..
I can see it now..Mother sewing the Power company over the placement of the POLE or the SLED company for MAKING A SLED.
The Kid was stupid to break in the substation
the danger of death signs were around but
don’t know how he got in there