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Dog killed by stray voltage in ground

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Dogs killed by stray voltage in ground

A horrific story re: dogs being electrocuted because of stray voltage problems.

Dog electrocuted on morning walk

Jan 13, 2009 07:51 AM

Sunny Freeman
Staff reporter

A dog out for an early morning walk with its owner died after being electrocuted near a hydro pole adjacent to High Park.

Toronto emergency crews received a call around 2 a.m., after the dog was electrocuted in the Keele St. and Dundas St. W. area., said Toronto police Staff Sgt. Mary Shaw.

The dog stepped on a metal plate at the base of a pole and "instantly lost consciousness and fell to the ground in convulsions," Shaw said.

Firefighters tried to resuscitate the five-year-old labrador-poodle mix using CPR for about 20 minutes, but were unable to revive it.

Toronto Hydro grounded a live wire at the top of the pole, said Shaw. Toronto police have advised Hydro to investigate all of the poles in the area.

A German shepherd died in November after being electrocuted near a light pole in the same neighbourhood.

Source
 
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holy crap!


grounding a live wire? that's like leaving the tap on all the time and letting the water go down the drain without using it. i wonder how much electricity was sent into the ground?

i'd never expect such a goof up from toronto hydro. i wonder if it could have been deliberately done by a pissed off employee?
 
grounding a live wire?

It's unfortunate when reporters don't know enough to ask questions, instead they just print what they think they've heard.

Last summer a tanker truck of "explosive argon fuel" spilled in Southern Ontario....we still don't really know what happened though, as there was no follow up or investigation, and Argon is neither explosive nor a fuel.
 
holy crap!


grounding a live wire? that's like leaving the tap on all the time and letting the water go down the drain without using it. i wonder how much electricity was sent into the ground?

i'd never expect such a goof up from toronto hydro. i wonder if it could have been deliberately done by a pissed off employee?

CityNews has published two letters from viewers who claim that something similar is happening in Bloor W Village & Queens Quay.
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_30927.aspx

On an unrelated matter, I chased Toronto Hydro for nearly three months last spring/summer regarding over 100 street lights that were burned out in my immediate neighbourhood. There were over 40 lights burned out on Wellesley Street between Queens Park & Jarvis Street alone.
Something isn't quite right over there.
 
Dog bites man. That's not news. Power authority gives pooch the chair. That's news!
 
Wait, is the voltage such that it can only kill dogs? or are people in danger as well? Shouldn't this be a bigger deal?! Like...shouldn't this prompt an investigation into all hydro poles - not just the ones in this neighbourhood?!
 
Two dogs die in bizarre electrocutions on Toronto street
JEFF GRAY
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
January 13, 2009 at 8:31 PM EST


Two dogs out for walks on the same Toronto street have died in separate electrocutions near Toronto Hydro poles, victims of a bizarre “stray voltage†problem that has prompted the city-owned utility to launch a sweep of the entire system, fearing a human could be next.

“We are very, very concerned not only that a dog has been killed, that's bad, but we are concerned that a person could be injured as well,†said Blair Peberdy, Toronto Hydro's vice-president of communications. “That's why we're giving this top priority.â€

Late last year the utility started scanning the city street by street with infrared equipment, looking for electrical “hot spots†after a seven-year-old king shepherd was electrocuted and killed on a Keele Street sidewalk in November.

But yesterday around 2 a.m., 25-year-old Darjan Avramovic was walking his father Dusko's dog, Mrak, a seven-year-old Labrador-poodle cross, less than 100 metres from the previous incident, near Annette Street. After stepping on a small round iron lid in the sidewalk near a hydro pole, the dog suddenly collapsed. It died despite the efforts of paramedics who tried to resuscitate it for 20 minutes.

Panicked, Darjan – just a block from home – called his father on his cellphone to come help before emergency services arrived.

“When I tried to lift [the dog's] head, I got a shock in my left hand. I did not know what was happening, I was in shock anyway,†said Dusko Avramovic, 55, a civil engineer. “… Imagine, it could have been a child.â€

In a sad, tired voice, he told The Globe and Mail that his dead pet was more than a family member because he was well loved in the neighbourhood, too: “I know everybody says ‘My dog is the best dog,' but this is what the other people who have dogs were saying about my dog.â€

Toronto Hydro crews say they examined the entire area for more leaky voltage yesterday and have declared it safe, insisting the two dog electrocutions were not directly linked. The street was checked after the November incident and deemed safe as well.

Mr. Peberdy, the utility's spokesman, said the sweep for stray voltage began last year but paused during the holidays. He said it would resume “in the next week or two†and be complete “in a matter of weeks.â€

Only then, he said, would Toronto Hydro have an idea of the scope of the problem, which in other cities has been blamed on aging infrastructure. Toronto Hydro is in the midst of a 10-year, $1.3-billion overhaul of the city's aging electrical grid.

While a crew investigating yesterday's incident hadn't determined exactly what happened, Mr. Peberdy said the tiny metal maintenance cover in the sidewalk, which usually contains wiring for things such as lit transit shelters, somehow became electrified.

In the November case, Mr. Peberdy said, electricity from a batch of wires under a sidewalk was believed to have been spirited to the surface by conductive salty water that had seeped into cracks in the concrete.

Yesterday, local city Councillor Bill Saundercook, who also sits on Toronto Hydro's board, asked city staff to look into switching to sand from salt as a safety measure.

Meanwhile, Max Mancuso, 30, has not yet been able to contemplate replacing his dog, Pierre, which was electrocuted on Keele Street in November.

He said Toronto Hydro clearly was not doing enough to solve the problem if a second dog died just metres away two months later: “It's really gut-wrenching and it's really disappointing. €¦ I was hoping something would be done.â€
 
Dog killed by stray voltage: That has happened in recent winters in NYC also!

Everyone: Interesting news on dogs killed by stray voltage-there has been a couple of tragic wintertime accidents in NYC in recent years that I now recall that have been caused by stray voltage because of wire decay in underground cable boxes causing their steel plate top cover to become energized - blamed on wintertime road salt use.

The incidents I am thinking of have taken the life of at least one dog-owner as well as the hapless dog involved! Con Edison has paid out substantial monetary settlements for these incidents-no consolation for those who died,though! LI MIKE
 
Wait, is the voltage such that it can only kill dogs? or are people in danger as well? Shouldn't this be a bigger deal?! Like...shouldn't this prompt an investigation into all hydro poles - not just the ones in this neighbourhood?!

The dog's paws acted as conductors, if someone was walking around barefoot (presumably in spring or summer conditions) they'd likely meet a similar fate. Shoes (footwear) act as insulators for humans.
 
It's unfortunate when reporters don't know enough to ask questions, instead they just print what they think they've heard.

Last summer a tanker truck of "explosive argon fuel" spilled in Southern Ontario....we still don't really know what happened though, as there was no follow up or investigation, and Argon is neither explosive nor a fuel.


so i guess alot of windows in this city are ticking time bombs? ;)
 
On Global News, they mentioned there have been no cases in Canada that involved human electrocutions like this, but there have been cases in the US.
 
Everyone: Interesting news on dogs killed by stray voltage-there has been a couple of tragic wintertime accidents in NYC in recent years that I now recall that have been caused by stray voltage because of wire decay in underground cable boxes causing their steel plate top cover to become energized - blamed on wintertime road salt use.

The incidents I am thinking of have taken the life of at least one dog-owner as well as the hapless dog involved! Con Edison has paid out substantial monetary settlements for these incidents-no consolation for those who died,though! LI MIKE

Yes, correct. A follow up story in today's Toronto Star indicates similar problems in the US as well as Canada. I'd never heard of this prior to yesterday.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/570630
 
Two More Dogs Zapped

This is getting more disturbing

Two More Dogs Zapped By Stray Voltage
Thursday January 22, 2009
CityNews.ca Staff

Dog walkers used extra caution as they walked their dogs through Yorkville Friday morning, after reports two more dogs were zapped by stray electricity.

The dogs were being walked on a stretch of Yorkville Avenue Thursday night, when they stepped on a metal plate and received a shock. They didn't suffer any serious injuries, but dog owners in the area want some answers.

"Now I'm going to watch my every step and his steps. That's terrible," revealed one local resident.

Toronto Hydro crews de-energized the faulty equipment and say the area is now safe. But the company says the light pole actually belongs to the Yorkville Business Improvement Area, which is now responsible for permanently fixing the problem.

Corrosion from road salt and snow may have been an issue, but the cause of the stray electricity has not been identified.

In November, a dog was killed by stray voltage as it walked past an electrical pole at Keele and Annette. And earlier this month a dog was electrocuted by another light standard at the same intersection.

Both incidents prompted a city-wide test for stray voltage.

In this case, the Yorkville B.I.A. is making sure it doesn't happen again.

"We do have ongoing maintenance program of our lamp posts. But if the weather's been an issue with this year, we want to double check them. We're doing that right now," noted the association's Briar Delange.

Crews from Guild Electric were on the scene for much of the day performing checks.

Dogs, especially puppies, are the most prone to electrocution and shocks but it generally happens after they've been chewing on a charged wire in your home. Here are the signs your pet may be a victim:

* Excessive panting/respiratory distress
* Unconscious near the source of the power
* Burn across the area where the animal came into contact with the electricity.
* Cardiac arrest

If your animal shows any of these symptoms, consult a vet immediately.
 
Between these zappings and the huge outage from last week, one really gets an impression of Toronto Hydro as a deteriorated, patched-up third-world mess. With our frozen and chewed up overhead power lines strung up on rotting wooding poles, it has the looks to match.
 

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