By Ole Braatelien November 15, 2024 at 6:12pm
More than 800 homes in Salt Lake City, Utah, had their power cut Wednesday after a woman climbed onto a substation transformer, forcing police to act.
Authorities cut the power to prevent the woman from being electrocuted. Police said she was having a mental health episode, KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City reported.
Witness Ryan Kent said he pulled over and saw law enforcement trying to talk the woman down from the high-voltage transformer.
Kent said he noticed a metal pipe nearby and a smashed circuit box as the woman screamed profane language at police.
🚨#BREAKING: More than 800 Utah Homes Lost Power After Woman Climbs on a High Voltage Transformer Inside Substation
Authorities and electric crews responded to a call in Salt Lake City, Utah, after a woman damaged power equipment and climbed a… pic.twitter.com/pDDgRn3jqW
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 14, 2024
“We were kind of concerned for her,” Kent said. “We’re waiting around hoping that she’s safe and she’s okay, and she comes down.”
The woman was yelling that the world wasn’t safe for her or future children, Kent said.
Footage of the incident initially showed the woman hugging a transformer before climbing a power line, grappling onto it with her arms and legs.
When police raised cherry pickers to assist her, she refused to get in.
To get her down, police eventually shot her with two non-lethal rubber bullets, Kent said, as she didn’t respond to the first shot.
Footage from another angle showed the officer shooting the woman as she finally flopped into the cherry picker basket.
WOW! Crazy people!
800 Utah homes lose power after woman climbs transformer
SLCPD fired a non-lethal rubber bullet to put her into the cherry picker bucket. pic.twitter.com/3i6BIQ59ai
— Steve Gruber (@stevegrubershow) November 14, 2024
“She literally collapsed … from pain into the cherry picker and they went down slowly,” Kent said. “She seemed okay. She was verbal, and she was in pain, she was crying, and then [an] ambulance came put her on a stretcher, and took her away.”
The woman was taken to a hospital and is now in custody.
Rocky Mountain Power confirmed with KTVX that they had cut the power for three hours, beginning at 11 a.m.
Ole Braatelien has written for The Western Journal since 2022. He earned his bachelor’s from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
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