Two-year-old dies after being electrocuted by illegal connection in Princess

A two-year-old girl died in hospital after she was electrocuted by an illegal electricity connection in Princess Informal Settlement on Saturday, November 5.

Police received a call at about 14:45 on the day in question and immediately made their way to Leratong Hospital where the little girl was taken after being electrocuted.

Roodepoort Police Spokesperson Captain Juanita Yorke confirmed that the police responded to a call from the hospital concerning a little girl that died after she held a live wire in Princess.

Reports indicate that the girl was discovered at about 1:10 before she was rushed to hospital.

Captain Yorke has condemned the incident and reminded the community not to support illegal connections as they are a danger to residents.

An inquest docket was opened at the Roodepoort Police Station and members of the public are urged to come forward with any information that might assist the police, the community can contact Sergeant Botha on 071 675 7137.

According to City Power Spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, they are not aware of the incident as it was never reported to them.

“We will dispatch a team to the community to gather further facts around this. The area is, however, known for illegal connections which includes a ‘spider web’ of exposed wires which pose serious dangers to the community in the area. There have been several incidents of electrocutions in the area and as City Power we have released several warnings to the community about the dangers of illegal connections while also conducting countless cut-off operations to remove those death-traps.

“We will go back to conduct more cut-offs because these illegal connections not only cost us millions of rands in lost revenue, but they also inconvenience formalised customers nearby who are forced to put up with regular outages due to the overloading of the network. We extend our condolences to the family if the deceased,” said Mangena.