Whitefish teen electrocuted in lake accident Lynnette HINTZE
Whitefish Pilot | July 21, 2004 9:00 PM They were three boys of summer, using the sanctuary of Whitefish Lake to cool off on a sweltering July afternoon. But something went tragically wrong. Logan Taylor, 18, and his buddies, Jolly Righetti, 17, and Bob Edelen, 17, spent the late morning hours on Friday at the Righettis' lake home home on East Lakeshore Drive, floating on rafts and using goggles to look for carp under the water, said Righetti's father, Mike Righetti. "They were just swimming on a sunny afternoon," he said. Shortly after noon, Jolly and Bob noticed that Logan, who was using a 6-foot spear, hadn't surfaced from his underwater quest. "Jolly saw him face down and tried to get to him, but the (electrical) current was so forceful it shocked him out of the water," Mike Righetti said. "He dialed 911 and called for an ambulance." Knowing his best friend was in serious trouble, and that time was running out, Jolly dove in a second time, his father said, and pulled Logan out of the water and onto a dock, all the while getting electric shocks himself. "He did CPR on Logan until the ambulance came," Righetti added. A preliminary investigation indicated Logan was accidentally electrocuted when he pierced a power line with his spear, said Flathead County Deputy Coroner Dave Leib. The four-wire, 220-volt electrical line supplied power to a water pump in the lake owned by the Righettis' neighbors, the Montalbans. Such pumps are commonly used by homeowners around the lake, Leib said, adding that the Righettis' pump is situated with four feet of the Montalban pump. In this case, the flat wire was fastened with zipper ties to a 1 1/2-inch water line that ran to the submersible pump. "The tip of the spear barely went through the electrical line," Leib added. "He hit one of the wires." The accident happened in about five feet of water, some 25 to 30 feet from the shoreline. Sheriff's detective Glen Fulton, the lead investigator, said the wire and the trident prong from the spear head will be sent to the state crime lab for further examination. "It was brand new wiring, with no breaks, holes or cuts in it. It wasn't faulty," Fulton said. "All indications are he (Logan) was holding the spear when it went through the wire running to the pump. It was a freak accident." If the spear had pierced the wire when the pump wasn't running, there would have been no electrical charge, no electrocution, authorities said. But on that day, at that hour, the pump was running. "There are any number of factors, that if they would've gone one way, he'd be alive," Fulton said. By 7/23/24, 9:46 PM Whitefish teen electrocuted in lake accident | Columbia Basin Herald https://columbiabasinherald.com/news/2004/jul/21/whitefish-teen-electrocuted-in-lake-accident-2/