Pedestrians in for shock on sidewalks of some U.S. cities

Pedestrians in for major shock on sidewalks of some U.S. cities
at 20:48 on February 17, 2006, EST.

NEW YORK (AP) - Two years after a woman walking her dogs was electrocuted by stray current coursing through a utility panel in a New York City sidewalk, increased efforts in two cities to detect other hot spots have failed to stop people and animals from being shocked.

Within the last few months, pedestrians and pets in New York and Boston have been jolted by short circuits in the electrical panels commonly underfoot in big cities.

Among the casualties:

Four pedestrians were zapped Sunday when they stepped on the metal lid of a service box near Times Square. Hannah Davis, a 15-year-old model from the U.S. Virgin Islands, likened the shock to being shot with a stun gun.

On Wednesday, a dog in a wealthy section of New York's Brooklyn borough received a fatal jolt from a circuit that once provided power to a street lamp.

Last month, a loose wire beneath a metal plate delivered a deadly shock to a dog in Boston. It was at least the fourth such electrocution of a dog in that city.

And in October, a New York sanitation worker reported receiving a minor jolt when he grabbed an umbrella touching an electrified light pole.

Authorities hoped to halt such incidents with new regulations and safety procedures adopted after the Jan. 16, 2004 death of Jodie Lane, a graduate student electrocuted by a malfunctioning utility box near her apartment.

Consolidated Edison agreed last summer to pay nearly $10 million to make sidewalks safer.

New regulations in New York state require annual safety checks at every point where current has the potential to electrify the sidewalk. Previously, only one-quarter of those spots were tested annually.

Boston implemented a tougher testing regimen, too, and began installing 35,000 plastic plates intended to better insulate sidewalk circuitry.

All the extra testing hasn't yet solved the problem.

A recent report by Consolidated Edison said the New York utility found and fixed more than 1,100 hot spots in the 730,000 pieces of equipment it tested last year. Most of the culprits were streetlights and traffic poles owned by the city.

Among the spots tested was the section of sidewalk that killed the dog in Brooklyn. At the time, no stray current was detected but such tests - conducted on foot by workers carrying handheld wands - aren't foolproof, said Con Edison spokesman Chris Olert.

"The underground in the city is dynamic. It is always shifting," he explained.

Subway vibrations can cause wires to jiggle loose. Frayed connections that pose no problem in the summer suddenly begin emitting current after snowstorms, when water laced with road salt seeps everywhere, providing a highly conductive path to the surface.

"We could potentially test one day and this could develop the next," Olert said.

Inspectors had also checked the spot in Boston's Charlestown section that delivered a fatal shock in January to a six-year-old Labrador mix named Killian.

City officials speculated vibrations from truck traffic subsequently caused a wire in the box to shift into contact with the metal cover, which was among those that hadn't yet received a plastic protector.

Some improvements to the detection system could be on the way.

In late January, Boston's main electric utility, NStar, began testing a special truck capable of detecting current leaks while rolling down city streets.

During tests the vehicle was able to detect energy leaks as small as a nine-volt charge running through someone's doorbell.

"It allows us to go out and sweep the city at a much faster pace," NStar spokeswoman Caroline Allen said.

Con Edison, which was involved in developing the vehicle, has ordered similar trucks for use in New York.

City and utility officials in Boston also have developed new sidewalk control boxes made from plastic and cement that do not conduct electricity.

Stray current has been an issue in other places, although the type of jolts reported in New York and Boston, both of which have extensive underground wiring, appear to be less frequent elsewhere.

Within the last few years, dogs also received fatal shocks on sidewalks in Baltimore and Chicago.

A tourist from Louisville, Ky., died in 2003 when she stepped on an electrified panel on a Las Vegas street median. County officials settled a lawsuit with her family in January.

Stray voltage hasn't been a purely urban issue.

Several dairy farmers in Wisconsin and Idaho have sued power companies, alleging current from poorly maintained transmission lines spread to the ground and into metal farm equipment.

The voltage was too low to be noticed by humans but enough to make the cows sick and hurt milk production, the farmers said. Some cases have led to hefty jury verdicts.

Olert, the Con Edison spokesman, said the company would continue working to eliminate problems and improve its methods for detecting stray volts.

"While there is always some sort of risk involved in delivering electricity, we strive to do it as safely as possible," he said.