Man unharmed after climbing large electrical tower in Charlotte

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers and city fire personnel spent hours Sunday afternoon to rescue a man who’d climbed more than 80 feet up an electrical transmission tower.

Thousands of Duke Energy customers in west Charlotte saw their power briefly interrupted when crews had to cut and later re-route electricity due to the danger of electrocution to the person atop the high-voltage tower.

The chain of events started around 2 p.m., when a person was spotted climbing the tower near Woodlawn and Wallingford roads near Interstate 77 in south Charlotte, according to the Charlotte Fire Department. Police say they responded to a 911 call and officers attempted to talk the man down.

CMPD SWAT negotiators and officers with the department’s Crisis Intervention Team were eventually able to convince the man to climb down on his own, the department said in a news release late Sunday. He was not injured.

“This person has not yet been identified due to his mental and physical condition. He was transported by Medic to Atrium Main to receive proper treatment,” CMPD officials wrote.

Most customers saw their power affected for about two hours. The power cutoff allowed Charlotte firefighters to attempt a “high angle rescue” at the transmission tower. Video captured on the Citizen app showed an individual near the top of the tower.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, in a tweet at 6 p.m., said the incident at the tower had reached “a safe and successful conclusion.”

The tower is 85 feet tall with six lines each carrying 115,000 volts, WBTV reported.

CMPD officials say they’re searching for a person who flew a drone Sunday close to the high-voltage lines and the man who was on the tower. Authorities say the drone operator is under investigation because they interfered with the rescue operation.

This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 4:10 PM.