A man who was burnt on Tuesday afternoon while trying to steal copper cables from a transformer in Heidelberg, Gauteng in South Africa has been arrested.

Heidelberg station commander Col Amanda Viljoen said in a media statement on Wednesday that an electrician was called out after a fire broke out at a transformer.

When the electrician arrived, the transformer and some nearby shrubs were on fire. The man was said to have called the fire brigade, who came to extinguish the fire. “After the fire was extinguished, a young man was seen lying unconscious with his clothes burnt. Paramedics were called to attend to the burnt and unconscious young man who was taken to Heidelberg hospital for further medical treatment as he sustained serious burns,” Viljoen said.

The electrician and police investigated the cause of the fire and found that the man had been cutting a current cable.

Viljoen said the police will charge the man after he has recovered from his injuries.

She tasked the residents not to damage essential infrastructure because it leads to “the meltdown of the country’s economy”.