Posted on 01/12/2005 12:50:31 PM PST by jdm
CHARDON, Ohio (AP) - A 17-year-old Amish boy was electrocuted trying to remove a power line that got tangled in his horse-drawn buggy's wheels, authorities said. The boy drove over a power line Tuesday that had sagged down within a foot of the road after separating from a pole, authorities said. The line got stuck in the wheels and stopped the buggy. The boy got out and grabbed the 4,800-volt line in an attempt to remove it from the wheels, the Geauga County Sheriff's office said. He died at the scene. The boy's name was not released because his family had not all been notified, officials said. The Amish are a deeply religious group who shun modern conveniences such as electricity, telephones and car ownership. About 40,000 Amish live in Ohio, the most of any state. The boy was traveling south on a road near Geauga-Trumbull County line in northeast Ohio, about 25 miles east of Cleveland. The horse pulling the buggy was not injured.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.netscape.cnn.com ...
"The horse pulling the buggy was not injured."
MSM had to throw that in at the end.
Poor kid.
His parents should have told him about 'electricity'.
Sad. Prayers for the family.
Awful.
Or radio...someone better warn Amish kids about box jelly fish and funnel spiders too. LOL!
Joking aside, this is a terrible thing to have happened. Prayers for the family. I'd imagine a close knit community like the Amish can lend a lot of support for the parents at this time.
Newfangled electricity causes yet another death.
At least he wasn't killed by an SUV.
I wonder if the Amish are so set against modern things that they wouldn't warn their kids against touching downed power lines? I raise that not to blame them but just as a point of curiosity. I know they avoid using modern gadgets, but I wonder if they avoid thinking and knowing about them.
Even people who live in a electric world don't understand how much power is going through those lines. They would expect a little shock but not instant death.
We would all have been better off it the had chosen to suppress that fact.
I've been to Holmes county a couple of times (high concentration in Ohio) and there's lots of modern conveniences in the area, it's just that they choose not to come in contact with them. Very sincere Christian people. BTW - there's no moral component to ignorance, as opposed to foolishness or "willing ignorance".
On my trips to Amish country I didn't like invading the area where they live - many of them would essentially like to be left alone to live out their lives in their community.
OTOH, they do make reasonable amounts of money on the tourism in the area, selling their wares (furniture, cheese, handiwork) to willing buyers.
There are "higher" and "lower" orders of Amish - the lower the order the less they have to do with modern society. The Amish are offshoots of the Mennonites, btw.
Somehow I don't think he watched too much TV.
Sadly, this happens way too often...not only to Amish. I'm amazed that people think they can just move downed power lines "out of their way". A lot of adults die from it too.
Shocking!!!
How could they, they probably have no more concept of it than the boy.
The buggy was prolly an SUV type.
SUB?
a power line that got tangled in his horse-drawn buggy's wheels,I see an inconsistnacy in this account - how does a buggy (PULLED ostensibly by a live, electrically conductive horse) 'drive' over a 4800 volt cable - and nothing happens until the boy 'untangles' the cable which somehow got tangtled up in the wheels ...The boy drove over a power line Tuesday that had sagged down within a foot of the road after separating from a pole,
The line got stuck in the wheels and stopped the buggy.
Bad writing/bad account by the press on this one?
Don't those wooden buggy wheels have an outside 'loop' of mild steel as the surface that contacts the road?
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