Man, 20, Electrocuted Trying to Cut Power to Street Light

A 20-year-old man was electrocuted early Friday when he tried to dim a street light so he and his sister could get a better view of a meteor shower, police said.

Scott Millett died at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian a short time after the 1 a.m. incident outside his family’s home in Newport Beach’s West Bluff neighborhood, police said.

“He was just trying to solve a problem and not using his head and made a mistake,” said the dead man’s father, Robert Millett. “He didn’t realize the power. He’s tinkered with 110-volt [lines] and been shocked and not hurt himself. The power in a street light, though, is considerably more. He thought he was going to disconnect the wire. He just blew it.”

The father said Millett and his sister, Kimberly Millett, an astronomy buff, were watching the Perseid meteor shower--an annual celestial event--through a telescope when Millett decided to shut off the street light to improve visibility.

He was electrocuted as he tried to snip the light’s main power line. The father said he, his wife and the couple’s two other children were asleep at the time.

Millett apparently was jolted by 4,000 volts, Police Sgt. Mike McDermott said.

“His sister heard the flash and saw him knocked over on his back. She saw he wasn’t breathing. When the paramedics got there he was in full cardiac arrest.”

Millett used pliers to open an inspection plate at the base of the light, then cut into the insulation of the 3/4-inch-thick wire, the diameter of a garden hose.

“Once he got through the insulation to the wire, he made contact, completed the circuit and was shocked,” McDermott said. “It basically just arced right through him.”

Millet was a graduate of Newport Harbor High School and had done odd jobs while “trying to figure out what he wanted to do,” his father said.

“He was into computers and whatever he could do to help somebody,” the father said, adding that his son also was an avid boater--a family pastime.

Funeral plans were pending Friday.

“I think we’re going to keep it kind of private,” the father said. “It might be a burial at sea.”