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Car accident takes out UG Service
02/25/2010 - By Dean UG service equipment
meter pan and disconnect
This was a crazy one! A drunk driver wrecked a list of things trying to drive home. One of them was this homeowners underground service at the top of his driveway!
The Power Co. didn't even see this laying down behind the fence!We had to do an emergency service call for this homeowner, who was without power and had a handicap person living inside the home with no emergency backup power. When we got there the Power Co. was at a power pole down the street repairing the connections. This was an underground service feed at the very top of the property, with the meter pan and 200A disconnect mounted on a wooden support set up. The driver crashed thru the fence hit the service and knocked it down then continued into a chain link fence for 30 feet. The top tubing from the fence went thru the windshield and hit the driver in the shoulder and was found sticking out the the rear window with his shirt ripped from him completely, he got messed up pretty bad and taken away.
As I checked the service I found it was still live!! When it got knocked down the underground wires pulled from the lugs and back into the PVC conduit and never contacted anything to cause a short and blow the fuse. I immediately got the Power Co. to come take a look and they didn't even know it was down and broken. They came right over with their truck and disconnected the power. No one ever saw the service behind the fence and shrubs, so it never got reported.
Photo Gallery - car crash
Click here for Slideshow. You can also click on any of the photos to start slideshow.
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