The woman wanted to move a cable from her sidewalk. A short distance away, the wind lifted sheets from the roof of a house, causing the wiring to come loose.
By: G. Urdaneta
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A 77-year-old woman was electrocuted during the storm registered on the afternoon of this Tuesday, July 14, when she touched a wiring that fell on the sidewalk of her home, located on 91st Street with 10th and 11th avenue in the Las Veritas sector, in Maracaibo. .
The septuagenarian was identified as Lilia Ruiz.
Witnesses reported seeing Lilia sit on the sidewalk in her home as it rained at 6:00 p.m., when a power line suddenly fell off a nearby pole. The cable fell in the middle of the road, but with the current of the water – a product of the downpour – it gradually rolled towards the sidewalk where the lady was.
To 4 houses where the seventy-year-old lived, the strong winds lifted sheets of steel that fell right on top of the cables and high-voltage cables, which caused part of the wiring to detach.
Lilia was barefoot and wet and, without thinking, she wanted to move the cable, away from the front of her house, but when she touched it, she received a strong shock. Lilia fell into a puddle by the side of the road.
“We saw, after a while, how the ‘charge’ (current) left Lilia’s body through one of her legs. It was shocking,” said a neighbor, without identifying herself.
“She used to take advantage of the rain to clean the sidewalk of her house, so she did not catch our attention. We are sorry for her death, ”said Amelia Rodríguez, another neighbor of Lilia.
The same community immediately transferred the woman to the Central Hospital, on El Milagro Avenue, but she arrived without vital signs.
