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Downed power line shocks 6-year-old Texas boy and his grandmother, leaving them with significant burns in ICU
A 6-year-old boy and his grandmother were sent to a Texas intensive care unit after they were severely burned by a downed power line, CBS affiliate KHOU reports. The mother of the boy said her son had burns on almost 20% of his body and that her mother suffered burns on more than half of her body.
Morgan Winters told KHOU the incident happened in an RV park near Lake Conroe, about 50 miles north of Houston. She told the station that her mother, Charlotte Winters, had picked up Morgan’s 6-year-old son Nathan Winters from camp on May 28 and took him back to her RV. They went to leave the RV park that evening after they lost power during a storm.
As they were leaving, they saw a downed power line and stepped outside of the vehicle to warn a neighbor, and that’s when they were struck by electricity, despite the station reporting they were not near the actual downed line. Both were sent to an intensive care unit in Houston.
“It’s a phone call that nobody every wants,” Morgan Winters told KHOU. “Not only is it your parent, it’s your child.”
She said that because it rained earlier in the day, it is believed the wet ground may have caused the electrocution. According to National Grid, downed wires may be live even if they aren’t sparking, and it’s recommended that people stay at least 30 feet away from one when it’s seen.
“Water is a natural conductor of electricity and a downed line in a puddle or flooded area can electrify it, creating a deadly hazard,” National Grid says. “Even non-conducting materials like cloth or wood can conduct electricity when wet.”
In a GoFundMe, Morgan Winters said Nathan suffered second-degree burns on 18% of his body, including his face. He underwent a skin graft surgery in which doctors took healthy skin from his left thigh to help the wounds heal on his left forearm and right shin, she said, adding he may have to go through a second graft surgery for additional injuries.
As of Monday, Nathan was wheeling himself around the hospital room, his mom told KHOU.
Warning: Some viewers may find the below images of Nathan and Charlotte Winters distressing.
Morgan Winters/GoFundMe
Her 56-year-old mother, who she says is a supply manager at a nursing and hospice facility, suffered second- and third-degree burns on more than half of her body and was in critical condition when the GoFundMe was created over the weekend. On Tuesday, “doctors will be able to decide if she will need multiple toes and possibly a finger amputated,” Morgan Winters said of her mother.
“Doctors are expecting her to be in the Burn Unit for 2 + months before she can be moved to a normal recovery floor which will also be for several months,” she added. “Charlotte will need to continue with physical therapy and other treatment most likely at a rehab facility before she can return home.”
Despite the long path forward, Morgan Winters told KHOU that her mother and son are “both fighters.”
“They’re both going to make it through one day at a time,” she said. “…I know deep down it’s going to be okay, even though it’s going to be hard and challenging. I’m just very thankful that they’re both alive.”
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to beep at drivers if they exceed the speed limit in an effort to reduce traffic deaths.
California would have become the first to require such systems for all new cars, trucks and buses sold in the state starting in 2030. The bill would have mandated that vehicles beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph.
The European Union has passed similar legislation to encourage drivers to slow down. California’s proposal would have provided exceptions for emergency vehicles, motorcycles and motorized scooters.
In explaining his veto, Newsom said federal law already dictates vehicle safety standards and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations.
The National Highway Traffic Safety “is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assistance systems, and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal assessments,” the Democratic governor said.
Opponents, including automotive groups and the state Chamber of Commerce, said such regulations should be decided by the federal government, which earlier this year established new requirements for automatic emergency braking to curb traffic deaths. Republican lawmakers also said the proposal could make cars more expensive and distract drivers.
The legislation would have likely impacted all new car sales in the U.S., since the California market is so large that car manufacturers would likely just make all of their vehicles comply.
California often throws that weight around to influence national and even international policy. The state has set its own emission standards for cars for decades, rules that more than a dozen other states have also adopted. And when California announced it would eventually ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, major automakers soon followed with their own announcement to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, called the veto disappointing and a setback for street safety.
“California should have led on this crisis as Wisconsin did in passing the first seatbelt mandate in 1961,” Wiener said in a statement. “Instead, this veto resigns Californians to a completely unnecessary risk of fatality.”
The speeding alert technology, known as intelligent speed assistance, uses GPS to compare a vehicle’s pace with a dataset of posted limits. If the car is at least 10 mph over, the system emits a single, brief, visual and audio alert.
The proposal would have required the state to maintain a list of posted speed limits, and it’s likely that those would not include local roads or recent changes in speed limits, resulting in conflicts.
The technology has been used in the U.S. and Europe for years. Starting in July, the European Union will require all new cars to have the technology, although drivers would be able to turn it off. At least 18 manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, have already offered some form of speed limiters on some models sold in America, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10% of all car crashes reported to police in 2021 were related to speeding. This was especially a problem in California, where 35% of traffic fatalities were speeding-related — the second highest in the country, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.
Last year the NTSB recommended federal regulators require all new cars to alert drivers when they speed. Their recommendation came after a crash in January 2022, when a man with a history of speeding violations ran a red light at more than 100 mph and struck a minivan, killing himself and eight other people.
