Toddler dies in paddock after stumbling on electric fence

By ELIZABETH BINNING and GREGG WYCHERLEY

A Waikato toddler who died after falling on an electric farm fence had been out playing with his pet dog.

Three-year-old Sidney Piripi Ihaka-Hemi was walking around a dairy farm on Saturday afternoon when he stumbled across an electric fence.

His concerned parents, who rent a small cottage on the edge of the farm near Morrinsville, found Sidney dead about 20 minutes later. He was lying across the bottom wire of the fence.

His mother was inside making him a snack when she noticed he had wandered off.

Sergeant Allan Cantley, of Morrinsville, said it appeared the toddler had tried to climb through the fence, which consists of three electric wires, and became stuck or stunned himself after getting a shock.

"He was just a little boy out on a farm. There is nothing suspicious about the incident at all. It's just totally tragic."

Mr Cantley said such deaths were highly unusual, but not unheard of.

While it would be up to the coroner to decide the exact cause of death, a Waikato doctor said it was unlikely Sidney died from electrocution.

Dr Murray Williams, an emergency physician at Waikato Hospital, said the current would not be strong enough to stop a heart, and the most likely cause of death was suffocation.

"The pulsing of the fence unit makes the diaphragm contract, so the breathing moves in time with the pulsing of the electric fence."

Peter Robertson, a technical adviser at the Energy Safety Service, which monitors all serious injury and death caused by electricity, said he was aware of only one other death involving an electric fence in New Zealand.

That was about five years ago in Timaru and involved a 40-year-old man who was looking at a water supply when he fell on to the fence.

Stephen Hoffman, sales manager for leading electric fencing manufacturer Gallaghers, said such deaths were rare because of the way the fences worked.

"The whole system revolves around a short, sharp, safe shock. It's a quick pulse rather than a constant current, like what comes out of your main power socket at home."

Mr Hoffman said the quick shocks were usually enough to scare animals, and humans, away from the fences.

Death occurred only when someone was trapped on the fence over a long period or when there was an aggravating factor such as poor health.

"Generally speaking, for an electric fence to be fatal a human being would need to have some sort of a problem [such as a weak heart] or something had to have happened to the fence or energisers."

Mr Hoffman said the fence involved in Sidney's death was not made or sold by Gallaghers, but was likely to have met strict safety standards when it was bought.

Tests are being done on the electric fence but early reports show it was working correctly at the time of Sidney's death.