I figured I’d write this while it’s fresh in my mind.
Between July 10 and 31, Melrose lost power four times. Each instance was virtually the same. Between 11 PM and 4 AM, I’d receive a call about some sort of issue at the transmission towers in Paulding County. Each time we’d get there to check it out, it was determined that a powerline had suffered a core rupture.
Core ruptures are concurrent with high winds and storms, but nothing we found pointed toward weathering. Even stranger, the damage to the powerline was often limited to a singular region.
The obvious alternative was sabotage, but why? And how? The powerlines are suspended 150 feet in the air. Not to mention the 500,000-volt punch it packs if you rock it. We were at a loss.
After the third outage, we called the local police, but they did little for us besides loosely scanning the area.
Initially, I didn’t mind being called in at night. It made for an exciting way to rack up some overtime hours, but I was utterly fucking over it by this point. Three weeks of sleeping with one eye open, dreading that the towers might suck me out of bed at any moment. Melrose is nearly an hour from where I stay. Despite that, I’m the nearest company technician to the area.
I planned to discuss it with my employer the following day, but he tracked me down first. He made me an attractive offer.
Since I’ve been called in to repair the powerlines so frequently, I would effectively get first dibs on a week-long paid vacation. The only catch; I had to spend it in Melrose. If anything were to happen, I was to report on-site immediately.
Even so, I had to hide my excitement.
It made sense. Despite whatever speculations we had, we were entirely in the dark as to what was actually happening at the pylons. We could chalk it up to whatever we wanted, but nothing would change unless we got to the route of the issue first. With the distance between the company and Melrose, there was no chance of us arriving in time to say for sure. Things could go differently this way.
I agreed.
I was in town that same week, meant to stay 7-25 through 8-1. Tuesday through Tuesday. They sent me with two other guys; we’ll call them Chance and Daniel. (field inspector and data analyst) All three of us had been sent to the pylons in the preceding weeks. We work well together. And we’ve grown increasingly familiar with the area and equipment over the past few weeks. If something were to go wrong, we could handle it with ease.
Chance and I stayed at Holiday Inn, while Daniel relegated himself to a much shadier place across town. It was the only one that would allow him to bring his St. Bernard. All was quiet for the next few nights. Without the threat of a long drive, I got the best sleep I’d had in weeks.
Until Monday morning, anyway.
I jolted awake to the sound of my ringtone.
It was my boss. There had just been another power outage. I got dressed as quickly as possible and made my way to my truck. I was fumbling to find it in the darkness. It was a cloudy, moonless night in Melrose. Every light in the massive parking lot was dead, along with the rest.
The Holiday Inn was conveniently close to the pylons. I made it to the meetup point within ten minutes of receiving the call. Despite being on the opposite end of town, Daniel had beat me to it. Chance was nowhere to be seen.
I got out of my truck and ran to meet Daniel, but his truck was empty. I heard his dog barking in the distance, so I began to run in that direction. After clearing a treeline that obstructed my vision, I could make something out in the distance. About a quarter-mile ahead, there was a bright pulsating light sitting atop the powerlines.
I ran faster. The barking grew louder. The light brightened.
I called out to Daniel, who strobed his flashlight at me 100 yards ahead. I joined up with him and caught my breath. The silence only lasted a few seconds.
“Don’t you see it?” He said.
That’s when I realized what it was. Draped over a powerline, 150 feet in the air, was the electrocuted, smoldering body of an adult Whitetail Deer.
My head snapped towards Daniel, but he wouldn’t look at me. He just kept staring at it.
“We can’t wait for him.” He said.
“I’ve already killed the power.”
I put the rest of my gear on and jogged to a pylon. I slung a fire extinguisher across my back and began ascending with Daniel close behind. Equipped with headlamps, we left our flashlights blinking on the ground to help Chance find us.
I attached my harness when I was at eye level with the thing. Its face was gone, almost completely burned away. Embers flicked off of its legs as it twitched still. It’s horrific seeing what high voltage can do first-hand. But that’s not where my mind was.
It just felt so wrong. It made no sense.
Putting the flame out only took a minute or two. I adjusted my headlamp to shine as brightly as possible. Then I saw its back. The deer had been impaled several times. I saw holes in its body with the diameter of a baseball. It appeared to be broken in half from the inside, the way it wrapped around the powerline.
Resisting the urge to vomit, I reached out to grab its hind leg. Just as I made a move for it, a loud crack came from the treeline I’d passed earlier. I froze.
“Just get it down, man.” Daniel said.
I began tugging, but it hardly moved. It must’ve weighed 150 pounds. I looked at Daniel, who was just below me. He was staring into the darkness. I looked down at our blinking flashlights.
“It’s a long way down!” I said.
“Make sure your dog isn’t in the way.”
I returned my attention to the deer. I began to pull once more. The powerline bounced up and down loudly. Daniel began cursing under his breath.
The deer slowly began to give. I felt Daniel grab ahold of my ankle. He proceeds to scare the absolute shit out of me. I could feel his legs shaking through the ladder. He was muttering about a shadow in the sky.
I pulled with every bit of strength I had, and the deer slipped off of the powerline and tumbled to the darkness beneath us.
But it never touched the ground.