By Naadiya Adams

(Twitter: @Miss_Naadiya)

Less than a week after by-elections were held across the country, a Sandton man meets his gruesome death in Lenasia.

He was reported to have died after stepping on live wires on the side of the road.

On Saturday afternoon, the man had parked his car on the side of Nirvana Drive and went to answer the call of nature when the incident occurred.

ANC’s PR Councillor for Ward 10 in Lenasia, Zarina Motala, said what had happened was “absolutely heartbreaking”.

According to Motala, the man is a customer at the the Station Butcher in Lenasia.

Motala said when after the man bought the meat, he must have desperately needed the loo as he decided to park on the side of the road and relieved himself.

Unfortunately, he stepped on live wires that run from the streets lights and into the informal settlements. He died at the scene.

“People in the nearby shops must have seen him lying there and they called the police who then safely removed his body,” said Motala.

His family was at the scene on Sunday to see for themselves where he had died.

Motala said illegal connections were a great problem in the area and that she had previously spoken to City Power to remove them.

However, they last removed them two years ago while residents of the informal settlement took to the streets to protest and then reconnected the wires themselves.

As things stand, she said, street-lights don’t work because residents of the informal settlement take power there, making streets dark and dangerous.

City Power’s Isaac Mangena has been to the scene.

He admitted there were problems of illegal connections in the area and they had several operations in the past where they cut the illegal connections, only for the residents to reconnect the wires themselves.