Live wires kill holidaying teen

Jake Flannery. Photo / Supplied

An Australian teenager holidaying in Bali was fatally electrocuted by live wires, officials said yesterday, with reports his friends at first thought it was a prank.

Jake Flannery, 18, died on Saturday after touching live wires on the popular Indonesian island's Jalan Legian tourist strip, where he was celebrating finishing high school with friends, according to Australian media reports.

The foreign office confirmed that they were providing consular assistance to "the family of a teenager from New South Wales who died in Bali as a result of accidental electrocution".

"The Australian Consulate in Bali will facilitate the return to Australia of the teenager's remains, in close consultation with his family, Indonesian authorities and funeral directors in Bali and Australia," a foreign office spokesman told AFP.

Friends who had been holidaying with Flannery were also being offered support, he said.

Flannery was out celebrating on the well-known Kuta Strip when he received the electric shock about 3am, according to local media reports.

"I heard he went up against a pole and there was a live wire up against it," his mother, Cheryl, told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"He was being electrocuted and his friends thought he was playing a joke."

The teenager graduated from school last week and his mother said she had been "so stressed out" about the trip, his first overseas.

Some passing Australian lifeguards who saw the jolt rushed to his rescue but he was unable to be revived, the Telegraph said.

- AAP