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Little girl survives big shock 
11:05 PM CST on Monday, February 26, 2007
The little girl who was nearly electrocuted when she touched an unlocked transformer got to go home from the hospital Monday night.
KHOU
Eliza Torres, 4, was nearly killed by the transformer.
Eliza Torres, 4, was back playing in the same area where she was nearly killed Sunday.
Reporter: "Are you happy to be home?"
Eliza: "Yeah."
"Reporter: "What happened after you were shocked?"
Eliza: "I was bleeding."
It happened at the Carter's Grove Apartment Complex in the 3400 block of North Shepherd.
The transformer that sits just outside the child's apartment has a lock on it now, but it didn't yesterday when she and a friend were knocked unconscious and sent to the hospital.
KHOU
This is the transformer that nearly killed the two children.
"All you could hear was a big boom, and it just scared me," witness Isaac Gallegos said. "They just exploded whenever he went in there. And then they were just shaking and shaking and shaking. And then they stopped shaking."
"It was like a gunshot, but it wasn't," witness Lydia Garcia said. "And then we saw blood on them, the little girl."
Eliza bears a big scar from the shock -- a burn that covers her face.
Her mother is looking for a safer place to live -- and justice.
"Well, I thought it was a good place. Now, go ahead, make a lawsuit and go ahead and move out because it's not right," said Elisabeth Torres.
The apartment complex was already in trouble with the city for code violations.
On Monday, city inspectors said if electrical problems in the complex aren't fixed quickly, they might shut it down.
"There are some issues that need to be addressed and if they don't get adressed soon, the intensity of the investigations will escalate to the point where we will consider moving those people out," said Public Works Spokesman Wes Johnson.
The city is giving that complex until Friday to come up with a plan to permanently fix its ongoing problems with city violations.
Meantime, CenterPoint Energy brought a lock for the transformer, but after they left, 11 News found five others in the same complex without locks or with broken ones.
11 News learned the transformers belong to the apartment complex, not CenterPoint.
"If they would have put a lock, it would have never happened," David Torres, the victim's uncle, said. "The light company has come over here a couple of times, fixed the box -- they should have put a lock on there already."
The apartment manager said they are working on those problems. And she says parents have a responsibility too.
"They need to take better care of their kids also because a child shouldn't be out there running outside of the complex unsupervised," said Brenda Barns.
So now in this place where the soda machine has a gate around it but a power transformer does not -- Eliza's mother believes management could have done so much more to keep her child from wandering into danger.
"Yes it could have. They could have locked it," said Torres. "They could have put a gate around it. Most of the other apartments have gates around the things the kids were not supposed to be playing around with."
The other child who was injured, 5-year-old Tony Mejano, is listed in good condition at Memorial Hermann Hospital.
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