Electrocutions

A handyman died on Saturday, apparently of electrocution, while working in the crawl space beneath an apartment building, authorities said. "The area was wet and near some electrical wiring," said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey. The handyman had started to work on the plumbing of the building in the 9600 block of Woodman Avenue around 2 p.m., Humphrey said. When the apartment building owner returned after 7 p.m.

Relatives of Stacey L. Schreiber, a Valley Village woman who died trying to save others after a fiery traffic accident this week, remembered her Friday as a warm, loving person who always did her best to help others. "She was just very giving of everything she had to the world," Karina Kausch, 33, said of Schreiber, her older sister. "She wanted it to be a better place and she did that by example. And she did that obviously in this case. " Schreiber, 39, was identified by authorities Friday as one of two women electrocuted when they came into contact with water electrified in the aftermath of the accident Wednesday.

Seventeen bus passengers, including a child and two women, were electrocuted Monday when their vehicle became entangled in sagging high-voltage wires in Uttar Pradesh state, the United News of India press agency reported.

A cause of death has been determined for an 11-year-old upstate New York girl who died Wednesday while playing miniature golf in Orlando, Fla.; she was electrocuted, officials have determined. The child, identified as Ashton Jojo of Latham, N.Y., apparently had reached into a small pond at the Orange Lake Resort to retrieve her golf ball, Florida officials told the Orlando Sentinel. The Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner announced the cause of death on  Thursday. Orange County code enforcement officers inspected the pond and found possible violations, the newspaper said.

An electrical contracting company has been charged with safety violations stemming from the death of a worker who was electrocuted when he drilled into a 4,800-volt power line. The city attorney's office filed the nine-count criminal complaint against Steiny and Co., a Los Angeles-based electrical contracting and engineering firm that was working last summer on construction of a UCLA dormitory. Also named were Steiny's project foreman, Kenneth Seeley, 36, and its project manager, James Duff, 36.

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.

Two teen-age brothers and a friend were electrocuted in a freak accident while hunting over the weekend. The boys upended a 40-foot-long irrigation pipe Saturday in trying to flush a rabbit, and the wind blew the pipe onto a 7,200-volt power line, authorities said.

A construction worker was electrocuted late Tuesday while working at a business, officials said. The worker, Edward Delatorre, 24, of Bell was lying on scaffolding in full cardiac arrest when paramedics reached him, according to Anaheim Fire Department spokesman Kent Mastain. He was taken to Anaheim Memorial Medical Center and was pronounced dead shortly after 11 p.m. Anaheim police Sgt.

A thoroughbred was electrocuted and his exercise rider hospitalized in a bizarre mishap Thursday morning in the auxiliary starting gate at Pimlico Race Course. Fox Brush, a 3-year-old gelding, was killed inside a stall within the steel-framed gate when a cable from an electrical supply source came in contact with the rained-on gate, charging it with high voltage, according to preliminary reports.

The Nebraska Supreme Court stayed an execution Wednesday over concerns about a new electrocution protocol in the only state that relies solely on the electric chair for capital punishment. Carey Dean Moore had been scheduled to die Tuesday for the 1979 murders of two Omaha cab drivers. The high court issued the stay after receiving a request for review of the protocol from state Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha. State Supreme Court Judge John Gerrard wrote that recent U.S.

A botched attempt to tamper with a gas meter resulted in a massive explosion at a South Los Angeles building Friday morning, killing one man and severely injuring another, authorities said. Gas service was cut off Thursday at JL Spray after the metal-coating business failed to pay its monthly bill, Southern California Gas Co. spokesman Dennis Lord said. Sometime after that, the meter outside the plant was manipulated so gas bypassed the regulator and flowed into the building at a powerful rate.

The bodies of two men believed to have been electrocuted while stealing copper wiring were found early Tuesday on an abandoned driving range in Riverside County, authorities said. San Jacinto police and county firefighters received a report of fireworks in the 900 block of Idyllwild Drive about 1:20 a.m., but instead discovered a fire near a transformer, said Deputy Herlinda Valenzuela of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

An Army criminal investigator told the family of a Green Beret who was electrocuted while taking a shower at his base in Baghdad that the soldier's death was a case of "negligent homicide" by military contractor KBR and two of its supervisors. The report last month to the family of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth said Houston-based KBR failed to make certain that qualified electricians and plumbers were working on the barracks where Maseth was killed a year ago, according to a U.S.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment, outlawing the electric chair in the only state using it as its sole means of execution. The state's death penalty remains legal, but another method must be approved. The evidence shows that electrocution inflicts "intense pain and agonizing suffering," the court said. "Condemned prisoners must not be tortured to death, regardless of their crimes," Justice William M. Connolly wrote in the 6-1 opinion.

Authorities are investigating the death of a 23-year-old man who was electrocuted while hanging Christmas lights in this San Francisco Bay Area city. The man had climbed about 60 feet up a tree and was attempting to throw a string of lights onto difficult-to-reach branches when the accident occurred. Officials say he was electrocuted when the string of lights touched two power lines. When fire crews arrived Saturday, they found the man hanging about 60 feet above ground.

A 49-year-old man was electrocuted while installing plastic water pipe under a house, a coroner's spokesman said Tuesday. Gilbert Alarcon was working at a residence on Amber Lantern on Monday when he apparently came into contact with a live wire and died at the scene, the spokesman said. He lived in Dana Point.

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.

At least 19 wedding guests were electrocuted when baggage atop the bus they were in hit a high-voltage power line in northern India, police said. Earlier press reports had the death toll at 60. The accident occurred in a village in the Bahraich district in Uttar Pradesh state, 280 miles east of New Delhi. The bus was on its way to the bride's home at the time. At least 35 people escaped the bus unhurt, police said.

The Nebraska Supreme Court stayed an execution Wednesday over concerns about a new electrocution protocol in the only state that relies solely on the electric chair for capital punishment. Carey Dean Moore had been scheduled to die Tuesday for the 1979 murders of two Omaha cab drivers. The high court issued the stay after receiving a request for review of the protocol from state Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha. State Supreme Court Judge John Gerrard wrote that recent U.S.

A French judge charged two police officers in connection with the electrocution of two teenagers whose deaths in October 2005 set off three weeks of violence. The judge in the Paris suburb of Bobigny charged the officers with failing to assist people in danger, officials said. If convicted, they could face as much as five years in prison and a fine as high as $97,000.