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Person spends 45 minutes trapped in car in Dorchester after utility pole and live wires fall on it
By adamg on Fri, 07/15/2016 - 8:26pm
A utility pole fell around 7:20 p.m. at Erie and Washington streets in Dorchester, bringing down phone and electrical wires and trapping a man in the car for 45 minutes until Eversource turned off the power and firefighters were able to get him out and hand him over to EMS to be checked out (photo of the pole and car).
This is the second time in three years that a pole has collapsed on a car on this section of Erie.
A police officer who happened on the scene had to yell at somebody who rushed to the car to try to get the guy out as the electrical lines hummed loudly. Firefighters who arrived not long after made repeated calls to get Eversource on scene.
Around 8 p.m., Eversource remotely shut the power to the area. Not long after, firefighters got the driver out.
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Comments
Have my scanner on city wide ....
Nothing but silence?
What gives ?
Maybe your scanner is like mine
For some reason, I often have trouble hearing BFD, so for something like this, I'll use the Broadcastify BFD feed (I initially heard about the incident on a BPD channel - a Boston cop was first to arrive).
WIth this particular incident, though, there were large periods of complete silence, because there wasn't much firefighters could do except stand there until Eversource finally figured out they could turn off the power remotely.
To both of you
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Now that everyone is safe
Can I ask, why did the pole fall down in the first place?!? It doesn't look like the squashed car assisted it into its horizontal orientation, and I don't think there were any tornadoes in Dorchester today...
And not for the first time ...
Just added a link to the story about how a pole in the same general location (possibly the same exact pole) collapsed three years ago.
Break away pole?
Some poles are designed to break and fall so as to absorb the force of impact.
Breakaway couplings are normally used for signposts
Although the FHWA experimented with the concept of a breakaway utility pole in the 1980s, nothing really ever came from the program. The result of this pole falling (live wires scattered everywhere) is one of the reasons why it is not practical to implement.
Sounds like an unacceptable and unnecessary delay
It's a life&death emergency situation. Dispatch and first responders should be able to have Eversource shut down the power much more rapidly than this.
"Your call is very important
"Your call is very important to us."
Youch!
That was a horrible accident! Glad the guy lived, and is okay and safe. There was no excuse for Eversource's delayed response, however. The firemen did a good job and got to the scene quickly.
It sounds as if that utility pole which fell on the guy's car wasn't very solidly put into place to begin with.
Did a truck Storrow cables
bringing down the pole on this poor guy?