A Shawnee, Kansas teenager died last month as a result of being electrocuted by an unplugged computer. The 16-year-old was taking apart the computer in order to use random parts for the assembly of another computer when the tragic incident unfolded.
The teen’s name was not released to the media, but the Captain of the Shawnee Police Department described the young teenager as a genius, and as someone who loved to take electronics apart in order to rebuild them or to build something entirely different. On August 16, the boy was breaking down the components of a computer, when he came too close to the device’s power supply.
As a result of his close proximity, the teenager was electrocuted by the computer. His father returned home later that day to find his son dead. The autopsy of the body revealed that electrocution was the official cause of death. It is unknown why the boy was too close to the power supply, mainly because he had disassembled computers so often he was aware of the risks associated with this piece.
Power supply boxes located on computers can hold a charge for an undisclosed amount of time even after they are unplugged from the wall. The time frame where a charge is still present is when someone can put themselves in danger. The teenager’s death has been ruled an accident.