Stealing electricity with a meat hook and not too many brains
This guy was not Benjamin Franklin
German police are investigating a man for theft after he siphoned electricity off a high-voltage overhead transmission line for one month with the help of an ordinary meat hook.
The 36-year old man from Sibbesse in Lower Saxony concocted the plan to steal electricity after the power company cut him off for failure to pay his bills, police said.
The man attached a cable to the meat hook and tossed it onto an overhead power line. He then drew power from the transmission line to his home, located about 150 meters away.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 34-year-career,” said Friedrich-Wilhelm Lach, chief executive of regional utility Ueberlandwerke Leinetal GmbH, told Reuters. “It’s incredibly dangerous and utterly stupid.”
An employee of the utility noticed the meat hook during a routine check. Lach said the man was lucky he is still alive and warned copycats not to try it: “It will kill you,” he said.
I can’t wait for this stunt to be tried by some of the knuckle-dragging gangbangers in my neck of the prairie.
This reminds me of when I was younger and we would send new hires over to another department to get “a two foot wire full of electricity”. The smart ones made it back in time for lunch.
Mr. Fusion
April 28, 2010 at 10:07 am
“The smart ones made it back in time for lunch.”
The smart ones took the morning off, then came back for lunch.
FTFY!
Cinaedh
April 28, 2010 at 1:37 pm