Teen escapes electrocution as ball snaps powerline

Anaru Williams kicked that rugby ball which brought the 400-volt line crashing down. Photo / APN

A teenager came close to being killed after she and two friends snapped a 400-volt powerline by kicking a rugby ball at it.

The trio were playing with the ball outside their homes in Mt Maunganui on Wednesday afternoon when one of the kicks struck the line, creating fireworks and cutting power to six houses.

Janie Bowring, 14, was standing below the line when it fell and had two frightening near-misses.

"I was exactly there when it dropped, and it missed. I was about to touch it but they [the friends] told me not to," she said.

Anaru Williams, 15, had kicked the ball.

"I hit it and it fell down. [The ball] hit it on the way up and it snapped in the middle. When it was hit it was like fireworks but when it hit the ground it stopped.

"It sounded like five-second fireworks. It dropped straight away and I just watched it fall," Anaru said.

The teens had been playing kicks in the street regularly in the previous few days and said the ball had hit the line before.

"We were kicking around yesterday and it hit it and nothing happened," Anaru said.

Police and a line technician arrived within minutes. "There were two police cars. They waited until the [maintenance] truck came and they just said to keep away from it," he said.

The Tenix line technician said it was fortunate no one had touched the fallen line.

"It was extremely dangerous. You should never touch it. This one here, they would have got a whack from it," he said.

It was the first time he had been called to a job because a ball had hit a line.

Raphael Hilbron, spokesman for Powerco, the energy provider in charge of the lines, said the incident could have been fatal. "It was 400 volts. We consider that low voltage, but that is still enough to be lethal.

"We have always taken the view that you should always treat lines as live. Always assume it's live and dangerous. The best practice is to not touch it at all.

"You should contact the emergency services and the power company as soon as possible," he said.

"It's pretty rare ... We have the odd car that brings down a powerline or a storm that brings a tree down on a line, but that's the first I've heard of that."