In this paper, a generalized form of telegrapher's equations for electromagnetic field coupling to buried wires is derived. The presented approach is based on thin-wire antenna theory. The effect of a dissipative half-space is taken into account via the reflection/transmission coefficient approximation. The conductor losses can be taken into account via the surface impedance per unit length. The derived equations are treated numerically via the Galerkin-Bubnov indirect boundary element method. Numerical results are presented for induced current along the wire, and compared with transmission-line (TL) and modified TL (MTL) approximations, respectively, for the case of perfectly conducting electrode buried in a lossy medium. It is shown that the TL and MTL approximations can result in an inaccurate induced current distribution along the conductor at HFs and for shorter electrode lengths, respectively.