Overview
- The 14-year-old climbed an overhead-line mast on the freight route between Buchholz and the Maschen yard in Marxen on Wednesday evening, when a likely arc from the live wire struck him and he fell onto the track.
- Firefighters and paramedics treated him beside the rails, and a rescue helicopter flew him to a specialist clinic in Hannover where he remains in life-threatening condition in an induced coma.
- A 15-year-old friend witnessed the fall, suffered shock, and was later picked up by adults at the scene, and police found two e-scooters believed to be the pair's transport.
- A freight train stopped at the site and the line was closed into the evening while emergency crews worked, according to police.
- Federal police repeated that overhead wires can deliver a lethal shock without touch because the 15,000-volt current can jump through air and travel over the body to the ground.