A 22-year-old man who climbed an electrical tower survived a 69,000-volt shock that a utility official said was nearly always fatal.

Jason Grisham was in fair condition Wednesday in a hospital burn unit.

Police and a Cinergy/PSI employee found Grisham asking for help as he emerged Sunday from behind a building at a substation where the tower was scaled. Grisham ''appeared to have extensive burn marks on his chest and his pants appeared to have exploded,'' police said.

Grisham, from New Albany, scaled the fence around the tower about 6:30 a.m. and then started to climb the tower itself, rising 12 to 15 feet before he ''received a dose of ... electricity and was knocked to the ground,'' said police, who were seeking a toxicology report.

''Contact with that level of voltage is almost always fatal,'' Cinergy/PSI spokeswoman Angeline Protogere said. She noted that household voltage is mostly 120 volts.

Protogere said the shock disrupted power to 6,800 customers.

The fence Grisham climbed is 7 feet tall and has three strands of barbed wire on top of it, and there are ''clearly visible signs'' saying ''Danger/High Voltage,'' Protogere said.

That guy was an idiot
A determined idiot, but an idiot

You've got to give him props though for taking that much electricity and to still be kicking around.

Though yeah, he's an idiot.

He's not stupid, he was probably just trying to earn a darwin award.

Its not the volts that kill you its the amps.

Your cars electrical system probably runs at around 15,000 - 30,000 volts at about 0.000001 amps. Yeah it stings like a bitch when you get zapped but it won't kill you.

When someone is executed by electrocution they only use 220 volts or somewhere there abouts. Cause with American power standard at 60 amps the combination of 60 amps and power over about 350 volts creates a fireball when it arcs.

power on high tension lines is between 66k and 765k volts at very low amps. They run high voltage and low amperage to combat the distances the power must travel.

The wire restricts the flow of electricity, not much when measured in feet but restricts the flow a lot when measured in miles or 100's of miles.

The transformers at power station turn the high voltage low amperage juice into low voltage high amperage generally 3 phase power. Then it comes to your neighborhood where it is stepped down to single phase power for residential use. BUT 3 phase power is starting to turn up in the home mainly in AC / heating units. God I'd kill for 3 phase power in my house.