An Indiana university student found out that although you might be able to survive a tour in Iraq, you won't make it out of a Chicagoland train station alive if you pee on the tracks, and then fall on the third rail.
Friends who were at the Evanston, Ill. stop of the Chicago area "L" train with the victim said that Ossian, Ind. resident Zachary McKee, 27, had climbed down onto the tracks to urinate when he stumbled onto the electrified third rail and was electrocuted.
According to the Daily Mail, McKee, who served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, was working on an undergraduate degree in political science and government at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. The now deceased veteran was active on Twitter during his final day among the living, telling the world through tweets that he was in Chicago for the weekend, and that he was going to see a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. He also said that he asked a Chinatown waiter "how many cups of tea before we become chinamen."
McKee's last tweets were "All u can drink, play ball," "There's no stopping us right now," "Stupid" and "No for real stupid." Yes, stupid. Like getting drunk and climbing down onto the L tracks near a high voltage rail.
The question of whether or not urinating on an electrified rail is actually lethal has not been answered, however, as authorities aren't yet sure if McKee peed on it or just fell on it. The television program Mythbusters has suggested that pissing on a hot rail probably won't kill you.
Photo credit: Chicago Transit Authority