AP - Montesano WA - solo car crash into power pole - man survives without serious injury - electocuted when current climbs urination stream while he urinates into ditch where live power wire fell.

Reported in Stockton Record.

http://www.theolympian.com/2010/03/04/1160395/autopsy-man-electrocuted-through.html

My local paper had this yesterday, but had previously reported was was in the Stockton paper.

Shocking news

Good heavens, I hope that he died quickly and with as little pain as possible.

Downed power lines are pretty scary. We should give them a wide berth.

I saw a report this morning saying that the autopsy didn't confirm this story. So I smell urban myth. Didn't stop me from cringing at the idea though.

Sorry guys, found this linked from Snopes

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_URINE_ELECTROCUTION?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

I'm thinking this was MythBusted by Jamie and Adam a couple/three years ago.

Peeing on the third rail, but close enough.

The mythbusters was for a 600VDC metro third rail.
An 11 or 17KV AC power line is a lot more dangerous.

The police report believes he came into contact with the line, could be directly or from wet ground - not necessarily from a urine stream.

This one may not be true but stuff like this "could" happen. I guy I knew years ago was Andy, my short friend and he was short as he got hurt with a downed power line. He was driving a duce and a half army truck really late and alone back to the yard and in a rainstorm. He slid off the road and hit a power pole and the truck stopped in the ditch, which had lots of water in in from the rain storm. He was stunned in the impact but came around quickly and then made his mistake and got out of the truck. The power line fell in the ditch water and he got electrocuted when he stepped into the ditch water. It didn't kill him but almost. He did lose his legs to the electric burns from the knees down.

His sense of humor was one of his survival skills - he always noted that after the accident he was an inch taller in his prosthetic legs.

I peed on an electric fence one time at a youth group camp out. Shocked the hell out of me, felt like I'd been punched in the groin.

There really was a guy who died and they found him by the downed power line. That much was on the news, the rest of the story? I'd have to ask Paul Harvey

They found the urine stream broke up into separate droplets before it hit the rail, thus leaving no continuous path to conduct electricity. That result wouldn't apply to someone peeing on something higher up, like a fence, or who stepped into electrified water.