Dog electrocuted near Queen & Parliament
Posted March 4, 2011 4:54 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A dog was killed Friday after coming into contact with stray electricity near Queen and Parliament streets.
The dog, named Tiny, died after stepping on part of the sidewalk that had been electrified because of a problem with the TTC’s overhead wires.
“We’ve confirmed that there was defective equipment on top of the TTC pole,” said Toronto Hydro’s Denise Attallah. “We isolated the energy and turned off the power.”
A Toronto police officer was also shocked when she touched the dog’s collar, but was not injured and taken to hospital only as a precaution. One of the dog’s owners, Pat Beverly, was sent to hospital for treatment of a bite wound.
Witness Kirsten Profit recalled the grim condition of the dog.
“Her dog was seizing up, foaming at the mouth,” she told CityNews.
A second dog was also zapped, but escaped serious injury.
Taryn Grieder was jogging with her chocolate lab, Bender, when she stopped at a traffic light near the intersection. That’s when Bender began acting strangely.
“I was just jogging with him down the streets and he just collapsed and he started screaming like nothing I have ever heard,” she explained.
Aubrey Godman, 27, also witnessed Bender in distress.
“The dog started making loud yelping noises as if it was in a lot of pain and it fell over and was kind of twitching,” he said. “The dog appeared to be steaming.”
The injured chocolate lab was treated at a nearby animal hospital and released.
It’s not the first time dogs have been hurt or killed after coming into contact with stray electricity in Toronto.
On Jan. 12, 2009, a dog was killed near Keele and Annette. A few months earlier, another dog was electrocuted in the same area.
Two dogs were also shocked while walking in Yorkville in January 2009.
Those incidents led Toronto Hydro to suspend all operations to focus on fixing the problem across the city.
