Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Amish Teen Electrocuted in Ohio

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Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 01-12-2005, 10:09 AM:

How Ironic

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2005011210290001122221&dt=20050112102900&w=APO&coview=

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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.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 01-12-2005, 11:02 AM:

Not ALL Amish shun modern inventions.

Amish communities are Presbyterian societies. (Government by elders.) The elders of the family decide how the rest of the group will conduct its business and whether or not to use a certian modern invention.

Some Amish I have known will drive cars... but only the elder men are allowed to drive. Women and children ride in the back. When they drive in the car, they all go as a family. (Or the men will all drive to "work" together.)

I used to sell furniture in a department store. One time I actually sold an Action-Lane sectional sofa to an Amish family. You know. The kind of sofa with the recliners built in.

After the deal was done, (Paid in cash, BTW.) I mentioned to the man that I didn't picture an Amish family buying modern furniture like that. He looked at me with a half-smile and said, "Did you think we all sit around on HAY BAILS all day?"

The kid who got electrocuted must have been from a family that DOESN'T embrace modern inventions. I can't help but wonder if he HAD been brought up around electricity or at least warned about it, would his life been spared because he would have known the dangers?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-12-2005, 01:40 PM:

That was exactly my thought - more a case of 'how tragic' rather than 'how ironic'.

We're absolutely not into Darwin award territory with this one, because if the boy hadn't been taught what electricity was and how to avoid its dangers, he couldn't have had any way of knowing that trying to disentangle the power line from his cart would kill him.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 01-12-2005, 02:00 PM:

4800V line to line or line to ground? I guess line to ground as that would be the amount of the shock. Would be 8320 line to line then or double the old 2400/4160 standard.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-12-2005, 03:33 PM:

If they are so "deeply religious", then maybe they will actually learn from that incident, for He has filled all matter with electrons so that man may learn how to move them around and do good deeds and he hath sent punishment to those blasphemous enough to deny and ignore the nature of His creation.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-12-2005, 04:29 PM:

When I worked in a school we had something called 'Headstart'. This was where some of the new intake, aged 11' would come in for a week during the Summer holidays to get to know the place before the start of the new academic year.

One year a girl ran out at the end of the day, straight into the road outside, and was hit by a car. Her injuries were fairly minor, but she had to be taken to hospital; I think broken bones were nvolved. The school had difficulty contacting the parents, the mother didn't speak English, I've forgotton what her language was, but there was nobody in the school who spoke it very well. Eventually they managed to contact the father, who did speak English, and who seemed remarkably unconcerned about the fate of his daughter. "We never taught her how to cross a road", he said, "We always take her everywhere by car"

How on Earth can you live in Brixton (busy area of London, with lots of traffic on the roads) and not think that your 11 year old needs to know how to cross a road?

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-12-2005, 04:40 PM:

How on Earth can you live in Brixton (busy area of London, with lots of English people everywhere) and not speak English?

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-12-2005, 05:22 PM:

There were quite a lot of people in London then who didn't speak English, not so many today. I don't think I could do it, I learned just enough Russian to get by when I went to Russia, and just enough German when I went to Berlin. I'm hoping to get to China in October, and I'm really not sure how I'm going to manage.

This happened at a time when there was still a lot of immgration to Britain, and Brixton has long been an area where immigrants settled. There were Huganots from France, Catholics from Ireland - rather ironic considering the troubles in Ireland later, Jews from Eastern Europe, then in my day there were Ugandan Asians expelled by IdI Amin, Vietnameese Boat People, and Brxton has a very large carribbean community, but most of them are descended from immigrants who came over in the '50s. It was a bit like New York, or maybe more like New York was in the '20s, people came there from all over the World. Many of the people we had at our school had only recently arrived in the Country. I think there were something like 60 or 70 first languages spoken there at the time.

I got the impression that the father didn't really want his wife or daughter to mix with the 'natives'. This does seem rather strange to me; I don't really understand how he could move to a country that he didn't want to be part of, but then I don't know what the situation was in his home country, or what he may have been escaping from.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-12-2005, 05:30 PM:

I agree with Stephen's question being rhetorical, but for Michael's there is a rational answer.

I've only been to Brixton once (around this time last year), and although there are indeed lots of English people about, there is also a very large, mainly West African immigrant community in that part of south-east London, a lot of whom do not speak English (or at least, not well enough to hold a 'phone conversation with a native English speaker). Having grown up not a million miles from Brixton, I can well believe the communication problem... but NOT that any responsible father who drives could have failed to teach his daughter that running into roads is not compatible with staying alive.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-12-2005, 05:59 PM:

Thank you, gentlemen. My question was mostly rhetorical-sarcastic though. I figured as much as Stephen said here

quote: Stephen Furley
I got the impression that the father didn't really want his wife or daughter to mix with the 'natives'. This does seem rather strange to me; I don't really understand how he could move to a country that he didn't want to be part of, but then I don't know what the situation was in his home country, or what he may have been escaping from.

and that's what my sarcasm was aimed at. Whatever they have escaped from, it apparently wasn't England, so why shouldn't they be able to communicate with the people among which they live?
I know the same situation from Berlin too.
Where I right now there are tons of people who speak little or no English and don't seem to think that's a problem. That hasn't so much to do with the fact that it is too difficult to learn the new language, at least a little bit after some time. They also don't have to integrate themselves to the point where they would lose their cultural identity. What I find sad is the very active self-segregation they generally practice, and with many immigration groups you can also see that it is indeed the wifes and daughters that they don't want to have any contact with the "natives".
I am also not surprised that Steven said the father didn't seem too worried. I have seen that many times myself from certain immigrant groups in Berlin. If the son has an accident, they cry their lungs out, if something happens to the daughter, oh, well, shit happens, she is only a girl anyway. That makes me sick.
And Stephen, nobody expects you to know Russian or German or Kirgisian, even if you visit there occasionally. But if you actually emigrated to another country, wouldn't you try to learn the language?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-12-2005, 07:21 PM:

quote: Steve Kraus
4800V line to line or line to ground? I guess line to ground as that would be the amount of the shock. Would be 8320 line to line then or double the old 2400/4160 standard.

WTF! Ya got to be kidding....... I vote for that to be the stupid statement of the day [Roll Eyes]

. Thats about the equivelent of asking what chicken bone someone choked to death on. I ask that you go there with your VOM and let us all know.....

The kid was very tragically killed by what was alot of voltage from what ever line he touched, k.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 01-12-2005, 07:50 PM:

Calm down Mark. That kid would have been killed even by 120 vac.

I agree it was a failure of their beliefs that was responsible for the kid's death. If he knew the dangers, he probably wouldn't have rode over the wire in the first place.

Steve, I'm sure if the reporter was remotely accurate, it was L-N...ground. Most distribution is delta but in local neighborhood distribution it's usually "Y" with, as you mention, 8.3kV L-L and 4.8kV on a single leg to gnd (or 13.2kV/7.6kV) then the pole peg drops it to 240/120.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 01-12-2005, 11:53 PM:

Some people have a difficult time appreciating wry irony.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-13-2005, 04:31 AM:

I thought my comments just below Steve's were far more tasteless and insensitive. But maybe Mark didn't react to these as strongly as to Steve's because that's what he would have expected from me anyway...

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-13-2005, 04:34 AM:

quote: Michael Schaffer
And Stephen, nobody expects you to know Russian or German or Kirgisian, even if you visit there occasionally. But if you actually emigrated to another country, wouldn't you try to learn the language?

And what makes it so bizarre here is that research has shown that we get a much higher proportion of economic migrants than most other EU countries precisely because of the universality of the English language: either because migrants speak it in the first place (which obviously wasn't the case here) or because they figure that learning English will be a greater economic and professional asset than another European language.

But the fact remains that, as Stephen's anecdote shows, there are significant sections of some communities in which English is not used or understood very much - and sometimes among second generations, too. The reasons for that, IMHO, would have to drag politics in, hence no further elaboration.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-13-2005, 06:09 AM:

quote: Phil Hill
That kid would have been killed even by 120 vac.

Thats exactly what I was thinking when I made the post Phil. The amount of voltage and the line he got it from was irrelevant.... so it still stands as the stupid statement of the week in my book.

Michael,
Actually yours was the best comment here! You can very well bet that their kind will learn from the accident.

Mark

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 01-13-2005, 06:24 AM:

You were close to getting it when you mentioned which chicken bone someone choked on. But now you've veered off again. [Frown]

Hint: The irrelevance is exactly the point.

(Although I disagree that 120V would be just as deadly. Obviously it's not. It may kill more people because more people come in contact with it but most people survive. But I digress.)

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-13-2005, 02:41 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Michael,
Actually yours was the best comment here! You can very well bet that their kind will learn from the accident.

Thank you Mark, thank you, actually I thought myself that it was rather brilliant (bows and waives at the audience).
But seriously, I don't think they will learn from the incident. If anything, they will see themselves confirmed in their beliefs as it is the nature of self-righteousness to interpret everything according to a pre-formulated and unquestioned set of rules.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-13-2005, 05:03 PM:

quote: Michael Schaffer
Stephen, nobody expects you to know Russian or German or Kirgisian, even if you visit there occasionally. But if you actually emigrated to another country, wouldn't you try to learn the language?

Michael, I wouldn't visit a country without knowing at least a little of the language; enough to understand common signs, buy a ticket on a bus, say 'please' and 'thank you', that sort of thing. I didn't learn very much German, or Russian, but enough to get by. I doubt that I will be able to learn any useful amount of Chineese, but I might pick up a bit while I'm there. There is an important difference; in both Berlin and Russia I was travellng around on my own, or in Russia with my Mother, who spoke no Russan at all. If I get to China I will be wth an escorted group, and there wll be an interpreter present at all times.

If I were to move to another country, either permanently or for a signficant length of time, I would certainly learn the language before I went.

I do think that if somebody wishes to come to Britain to live they should be required to have a resonable command of the language before they come, unless they have to come suddenly in an emergency, in which they should be required to learn it as soon as they arrive. This is for their own benifit as much as anyone else's. I'm not saying that they should abandon their own language, or not teach it to their children, simply that they should be able to understand written and spoken English.

The daughter of the family I wrote about spoke very good English, though the Father did not like to hear her do so. I think he would have kept both wife and daughter locked in the house if he could have. I think he transported daughter by car to avoid the risk of her mixing with the English people that he so despised if she walked, or took a bus. I don't understand how he could choose to live in a country when he was so opposed to its culture.

quote: Leo Enticknap
I can well believe the communication problem... but NOT that any responsible father who drives could have failed to teach his daughter that running into roads is not compatible with staying alive.

Leo, if you had a daughter, would you teach her about the dangers of handling spent neuclear fuel rods? Probably not, because you wouldn't put her in a situation where she would come into contact with the stuff. The father never put her in a situation where she came into contact with traffic; she was either at home, or in his car, or at school. She never needed to cross a road, so he never taught her how to.

I don't consider his attitude to be responsible, I think it's crazy, but I think I can in a way see the logic of it, from his point of view. I find it more difficult to understand his seeming lack of concern at hearing that his daughter had been involved in an accident, and was in hospital.

Has anyone seen the BBC film of Jeanette Winterson's 'Oranges are not the Only Fruit'? The way that the mother of Jess (Jeanette in the original book) tries to protect her from what she sees as the evils of the World seems rather similar to me. Evil or not, the World exists as it is, and I don't think you're doing a child any favours by trying to keep them away from it. This film deserved to get a theatrical release. It didn't get one, but it has been shown on the big screen at the Natonal Film Theatre.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-14-2005, 10:21 PM:

Sorry Steve but yours came across as making fun of the situation for what ever reason......

quote: Michael Schaffer
But seriously, I don't think they will learn from the incident. If anything, they will see themselves confirmed in their beliefs as it is the nature of self-righteousness to interpret everything according to a pre-formulated and unquestioned set of rules.

You may be right Michael but they probably won't try driving across a power line again. For myself, until I am offered definite proof of who wrote those(or other) pre-formulated rules I could never be part of any organized religion.... Not that I don't have my own beliefs though......

Mark