English: An illustration of the death of Western Union lineman John Feeks from page 549 of the 1891 book Physique Populaire by Emile Desbeaux, drawn by D. Dumon.

On October 11, 1889, in New York City in a Downtown Manhattan district, Western Union lineman John Feeks was high up in the tangle of overhead electrical wires working on what were supposed to be low-voltage telegraph lines. As the lunchtime crowd below looked on he grabbed a nearby line that, unknown to him, had been shorted many blocks away with a high-voltage alternating-current line. The jolt entered through his bare right hand and exited his left steel-studded climbing boot. He was killed almost instantly, but his body fell into the tangle of wire and was cut open, bleeding, sparking, burning, and smoldered for the better part of an hour while a horrified crowd of thousands gathered below. Where the power came from that killed Feeks was never determined, although The United States Illuminating Company had alternating-current lines carrying many thousands of volts that ran nearby.

Obituary (The Wellsboro Agitator, Tuesday, October 15, 1889, Wellsboro, Tioga Co, Pa.)

A telegraph lineman named John Feeks met a horrible death on Chambers street, New York city, last Friday afternoon from contact with an electric-light wire. He presented a terrible sight, as he died on the net-work of wires in mid-air, while the deadly fluid actually made his body sizzle and the blood poured out on the sidewalk and over the clothing of the horrified-spectators. The accident, occurring in one of the busiest parts of the city, was witnessed by a large number of people. The man’s body lay limp and motionless over the mass of wires attached to the cross-trees of the pole. The firemen brought out a ladder and one went up with a pair of shears to cut the wires. The man was found to be dead. He probably touched the electric-light wire by accident. The body lay where it was until firemen went to the factory and had the current turned off. The victim’s face was turned towards the sidewalk, and in 15 minutes the wires had burned off half the face. The left arm was also seen to be burning, and every few seconds the blue flames spurted out from the various parts of the body. Hundreds of people stood shivering as they looked at the awful sight. No one dared to go near. Even the firemen’s faces blanched with horror. The body of the lineman could not be taken down from the wires for half an hour. Deputy Coroner Jenkins, who has witnessed some horrible sights during his official career, said this spectacle was the most ghastly he had ever seen. He was present while efforts were being made to get the body down and afterwards viewed it. A wire, he said, had cut through the lineman’s cheek and had burned clear into the cheek bone. A burn in the throat had severed the windpipe and many muscles and veins. If the mangled remained suspended in the air much longer the head would have been completely severed from the body.