Electricians continue to investigate electrocution at Lincoln High School football stadium

By Ian Thibodeau, mlive.com

Electrical crews began taking apart the light towers at Lincoln High School football stadium Friday aspart of an ongoing investigation into the Oct. 3 death of 13-year-old middle school student Christian Lorinczy.

Ellen Bonter, Lincoln Consolidated Schools superintendent, said that she didn't have any new findings to report from Friday's investigation, but crews had been working throughout the day as promised.

Bonter said high school electricians used a boom lift to dismantle the light tower believed to have caused the shock Lorinczy received at a Sept. 30 middle school football game, a shock that killed him three days later. The eighth-grade student was electrocuted after he fell backward into a fence on the ramp leading to the bleachers at the football field at Lincoln High School.

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Mike Holt’s Comment:

Death from electricity occurs for just a few simple reasons.

1. There is a ground fault, most likely to a metal part.

2. The metal part is not connected with an effective ground-fault current path to the source. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_JbaYybrFI

3. Because there is no effective ground-fault current path from the point of a fault to the source the metal part remains energized with dangerous voltage.

 

Danger: Grounding of the metal parts to the earth serves no purpose in making an installation safe from a ground fault for systems below 1000V. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlKiWk4Bb5Y