NEWSLETTER

CHRIS NIERATKO - SECTION 1

A GUY WHO SAW ANOTHER GUY GET ELECTROCUTED TO DEATH
by Chris Nieratko

Drawing by Chris Nieratko

Vice: Didn’t you see some guy at work get electrocuted and die?

Dave Hatalla: Yeah. He had a heart attack when he got electrocuted. It was in Alabama at a sawmill. He was working in some switchgear and hit the wrong bus or something, fried himself, and had a heart attack. I was like 15 feet away when it happened.

What did it look like? Like in the movies?

Yeah, kinda. That electric-chair look, when you get zapped. You shake all around and it hurts like hell.

Wasn’t there an old guy recently up in Jersey that you saw die?

No, not up here. Not at my job.

Have you ever been electrocuted?

Yeah, enough to get thrown back 12 feet from a 15,000-volt line. I was tying in some switchgear and the static charge built up on the phases, I reached in with a wrench and it jumped from A-Phase to B-Phase and it knocked me back. I blacked out. I had Craftsman engraved in my hand, upside down from the wrench. I wish I could remember what story you were talking about, of the old guy that died.

I think you said it was like a week before he was getting married or some shit.

Oh, that was my friend Brainer. He was on a job and this kid who was his apprentice was just about to get married. He was driving one of those man-lifts high up in the air and he hit a hole and the whole lift fell and the kid came flying out of it and split his head wide open. My friend said the kid’s brains were hanging out on the floor and it was pretty sick. It was like three or four days before his wedding. He was hemorrhaging and in convulsions. He died on-site.


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