(December 31, 2011) - The body of a 53-year-old man was found last night at about 9 p.m. at MLGW's electric substation at 1630 Menager. The man apparently came in contact with electrified equipment. The victim was not an MLGW employee and was not authorized to be on the premises. MLGW workers discovered that about 300 feet of copper wiring had been cut and was missing from the substation. The MLGW employees were responding to an equipment outage that was apparently caused by the electrocution. There were no customer outages associated with the substation equipment outage.

Substations are facilities where electricity is stepped down from the high voltages used to move it over long distances to lower voltages before being sent to the transformers outside customer premises. MLGW reminds its customers that unauthorized personnel should never attempt to enter electric substations, which contain numerous pieces of potentially hazardous electrified equipment. For this reason, MLGW substations are gated and locked in order to ensure public safety. In investigating, MLGW workers found holes cut in the substation's surrounding fence that were apparently used to gain access.

MLGW and the Memphis Police Department are continuing to investigate this incident.