Electrocution

A 44-year-old Moreno Valley woman was electrocuted while repairing wires in a Riverside home Tuesday, authorities said. Independent contractor Debra Ann McCullah was working on the wiring in a small attic space when she was electrocuted at 6:37 p.m., said Steven Frasher, spokesman for the Riverside Police Department. Firefighters had to cut through the home's roof to reach her, Frasher said. McCullah was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Riverside Community Hospital.

On the shelves at Trixie & Peanut, a boutique in Manhattan, are indulgences for dog owners concerned with image: pink sequined tank tops, moss-green lizard-skin collars, rhinestone barrettes shaped like tiny bones. Then there are specialty products for a different kind of shopper: People who don't want their pet to be electrocuted.

A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted in his Waco church after grabbing a microphone while standing in water, a church employee said. The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, was in a baptismal at University Baptist Church when he was electrocuted, said Jamie Dudley, a church business administrator. Doctors in the congregation performed chest compressions, she said. Lake was taken by ambulance to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, where nursing supervisor Pat Mahl said he was pronounced dead.

The family of a 12-year-old boy who was electrocuted at a bus stop shelter in Miami was awarded $65.1 million in a civil trial against the outdoor advertising company that built and wired the structure. A jury decided that Eller Media Co. must pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $61 million in punitive damages in the 1998 death of Jorge Luis Cabrera. Phoenix-based Eller Media's parent company is Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio broadcaster.

A captain with the Santa Clara County Fire Department died early Sunday after being electrocuted by a power line at a house fire. Capt. Mark McCormack's on-duty death was the first in the department's 58-year history, officials said. Firefighters were called to the scene about 2:20 a.m. Sunday. Six residents were at home and escaped uninjured, officials said. As McCormack helped fight the blaze, he touched a live electrical wire.

The family of a woman electrocuted while walking her dogs last winter received a $6.25 million cash settlement Tuesday from the utility that acknowledged her death was caused by an improperly wrapped wire. Consolidated Edison also agreed to pay for a $1-million scholarship and research fund at Columbia University in memory of Jodie Lane, 30, a doctoral student who was killed Jan. 16 when she stepped on the metal cover of a utility box while walking her two dogs.

As a boy growing up in San Diego's Paradise Hills neighborhood, Army Spc. Marcos O. Nolasco longed to see the world. So, when he decided to enlist in the Marine Corps to travel the globe after graduating from Tierrasanta High School in 1989, his relatives and friends weren't surprised. Nolasco's wanderlust took him to Okinawa, Japan; Bamberg, Germany; and, eventually Baji, Iraq, where he was killed May 18 as the result of an electrocution accident, military officials said.

John Kincannon was cleaning his pool one day when the Lemon Heights lawyer spotted a palm frond dangling from nearby power lines. Armed with an aluminum pool skimmer, he swung at the debris -- and accidentally touched the metal pole to the line, receiving a fatal jolt of electricity. A year later, his widow and three children are seeking general damages from Southern California Edison Co.

Fifteen people were killed when an electrical wire fell into a crowd during a street basketball game in the town of Petit-Goave, electrocuting players and spectators, officials said. The accident happened Monday afternoon as dozens of people were watching the basketball game in the small coastal town. Petit-Goave Mayor Reginald Francois called the deaths a "real catastrophe" and said the Haitian government would pay funeral expenses for the dead.