Always happens to the smart ones

Been a few cases like this in the US, too...in one instance, some bright thieves were trying to strip out a warehouse electrical system and ate Sizzling Death when they cut into a cable they thought was dead, but was in fact carrying 7200kV. Oops.

Then there were the really smart ones who were trying to yank all the neutral conductors from a substation, not realizing that neutral can carry current. When they got the cutters through the conductor on the transformer, a potential of several kilovolts developed between the neutral and ground, and POP...