Dominion Energy said they’re investigating but that they believe the trail in Northern Virginia is safe. News4’s Julie Carey reports.
A D.C.-area cyclist is hoping to get answers about how he got a very mysterious injury Sunday on the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail in Northern Virginia.
The portion of the trail he was biking from Sterling to Leesburg runs alongside power lines. The cyclist, Lincoln Abrahams, believes somehow electricity traveled into his body, leaving an exit wound and burning a hole through two pairs of pants.
Take one look at the holes burned into Abrahams' biking pants, and you can tell something very unusual happened to him.
Now Dominion Energy is investigating, but the company said it believes the trail is safe.
Abrahams bikes every weekend, often on that stretch of the W&OD Trail. But Sunday morning, he left the trail bleeding, and he thinks electricity is to blame. He says he hadn’t gone far when he felt something strange.
"Probably about two miles in, I felt like a tingling sensation in my hands and then on my leg," he said. "I thought nothing of it and kept going."
Abrahams says he felt the tingling a second time on his return trip, but it wasn't until he'd finished his ride and changed out of his pants that he realized he was bleeding.
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"I started looking at the bike and saw all the blood coming down the bike post, rolling down," he said. "It was like, 'Whoa, what’s going on?' Just kind of shocked. We were sitting there, like, 'What could have happened?'"
He then saw the bloody holes in his bike pants and a big burn mark on the skin of his inner thigh.
Abrahams said it's actually not the first time he's felt tingling near power lines. It also happened last year on a different trail, he said. When he got home, his son declared, "Dad got zapped again!"
Abrahams' wife, Lisa, took a look.
"When I looked at his leg, you could see a clear burn area around where the third-degree burn was, a deep burn. And I said, 'This traveled through your body, and that's an exit point.'"
Convinced electricity was the culprit, Lisa Abrahams immediately called Dominion Energy. She also posted some of the pictures on social media.
"It terrifies me, because you can feel a tingling on the outside, but you don't know what it happening on the inside," she said.
A Dominion spokesperson said the company immediately sent out two teams to drive through much of the area that Lincoln Abrahams had cycled, examining both the tall transmission lines and distribution lines.
"Today we came back out, and a team is walking the 14 miles, carefully inspecting everything," Dominion Energy spokesperson Peggy Fox said. "So far, we have found no abnormalities … It is still a mystery. We're hoping we can figure out what happened."
Abrahams is heading to a doctor to get checked out.
"My entire body is sore," he said. "My shoulders, my legs."
He and his wife are hopeful Dominion will solve the mystery.
Dominion Energy said in a statement:
"Dominion Energy is investigating a reported injury to a W&OD trail user from nearby electric distribution and transmission line facilities. We take safety concerns seriously and are conducting a multi-day investigation to confirm normal operations on our transmission and distribution lines along the trail.
"On Sunday, two separate Dominion Energy teams — from distribution and transmission — patrolled 7 miles by vehicle on the overhead section mentioned by the caller. In addition, on Monday the transmission team patrolled 14 miles (which repeated the 7-mile overhead section patrolled on Sunday) on foot for both the overhead and underground sections.
"So far, our crews have not found any abnormalities with the equipment and have no reason to believe that the safety of trail users is compromised, but we continue to review."
