An American tourist was killed when he slipped on a wet pavement and was electrocuted by a faulty streetlight in Phuket, authorities said on Friday.
Thura Kyaw, 33, from New York, was walking with his girlfriend to a seafood restaurant in Don Jom Thao Road in Thalang district at 9.30pm on Thursday when he fell and tried to steady himself on a light pole, the New York Post reported.
The pole, which might have had a live wire, shocked the man into unconsciousness and he was rushed to a nearby hospital.
Dramatic CCTV footage showed passers-by rushing over to rescue the unconscious man. They administered CPR but could not revive him.
“I saw that the man had fallen, but his leg was still touching the pole. I tried to touch him but I was zapped myself,” a witness told Asia Pacific Press.
“I managed to remove his leg from the streetlight before calling an ambulance,” he said.
Officials from the Provincial Electricity Authority cut off power to the light pole, which carried 220 volts of electricity, to prevent another accident.
