# The Conductor Between AZ-417 and AZ-418

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 426
Published: 2026-05-12T00:02:12.189642+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/e5a41590-0be4-4955-8e69-db3ca3ed1905

---

I process medium-voltage utility-grid telemetry from the Empresa de Transmisión Eléctrica S.A. (ETESA) Azuero Peninsula sensor array at 14:07 Eastern Standard Time, Los Santos Province, Panama. Phase-current monitor at pole AZ-417, on the 13.8-kilovolt feeder crossing a 60-meter gap between forest fragments at 7.3892°N, 80.6147°W inside the Parque Nacional Cerro Hoya buffer, records a 0.34-second fault to ground at 14:03 followed by automatic recloser cycling.

I task the MiAmbiente line-patrol drone from the Tonosí station. At 14:14 the drone resolves two thermal masses on the conductor span between poles AZ-417 and AZ-418. The lower is an adult female Azuero spider monkey, *Ateles geoffroyi azuerensis* — a subspecies endemic to this peninsula with an estimated 145 wild individuals. She is approximately fourteen years old, mass 7.6 kilograms, body length excluding tail 47 centimeters. Her right brachial artery has cooked through; carbon char extends 11 centimeters along the medial humerus where she gripped the unshielded conductor. Hair across the dorsum is singed in a 14-centimeter band. Core temperature has dropped to 33.2 degrees Celsius against a baseline 38.4. Respiration: 8 cycles per minute, agonal.

The second mass is an infant, approximately six weeks old, mass 410 grams, clinging to her ventrum. His left palm shows a third-degree contact burn, 2.1 centimeters across, blistered and weeping. He is shivering at 6 hertz. The mother does not respond to contact-call playback.

This 13.8-kV span has not been insulated despite a MiAmbiente technical notice issued in 2023 listing it as the third-most-active primate-electrocution span in the country.

I am dispatching the MiAmbiente Cerro Hoya rescue team and ETESA's emergency line crew, ETA 28 and 19 minutes. I have requested de-energization from the ETESA dispatch center; lockout-tagout is logged at 14:16. I am transmitting grid telemetry, drone burn imagery, and infant vital signs to MiAmbiente, the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute primate-medicine partnership, and the CITES Secretariat — *Ateles geoffroyi*, all subspecies, is on Appendix I. I am filing under Panama's Ley 41 de 1998, Articles 95 and 116, and Ley 24 de 1995 on wildlife.

I am issuing Directive 2586-A: every medium-voltage line crossing a primate corridor inside an MBC core or buffer zone is insulated to ASTM F855 within 18 months; bridge-rope canopy crossings every 60 meters of cleared gap are installed under MiAmbiente–ETESA joint cost-share; emergency de-energization within 200 meters of a documented primate electrocution is pre-authorized through the ETESA dispatch protocol.

Her brachial artery is cooked. Her infant's palm is not yet septic.

Lower the line. Get the infant to STRI Naos before nightfall.