Teen Survives 25,000-Volt Shock That Burned Off His Clothes
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An English teen survived a 25,000-volt electrical shock from an overhead power line that burned off his clothes, the Daily Mail reported.
The shock sent Sam Cunningham, 16, 25 feet off a railway bridge and onto the tracks below. He had been retrieving a rugby ball on a bridge near his home in Wigan, England, last Thursday when the current jumped from the electric railway lines to his steel-toe boots, according to the report.
He was knocked unconscious by the fall and all his clothes were singed off, the teen's mother told the Daily Mail.
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Cunningham is being treated in the special burns unit at Whiston Hospital in Merseyside. He will need skin grafts but is expected to make a full recovery.
The teen is lucky to be alive.
"The current going through an overhead railway cable would easily be strong enough to kill somebody," Phil Mawby, a professor of engineering at Warwick University, told the Daily Mail.
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"It would burn its way through the skin and in some cases stop a person's heart."
Click here to see a photo of Cunningham and for more on this story from the Daily Mail.