I wonder at what voltage it becomes possible to simply vaporise a person? Did the police mention a pair of smoking boots left at the crime scene along side the hacksaw?

"Cops found said hacksaw embedded in the cable, and a lit blowtorch at the scene, but no sign of the high-voltage perp"

Did they look in a tree about 100 metres away?

Unless I've got my terminology wrong, it would be the current that would vapourise somebody rather than the voltage. Though I suspect I'm wrong ;)

Flames, because its a likely side effect of Vapourisation.

Shocking

More likely, they should be searching for a smoking corpse in a nearby hedge or tree...

mine's the insulated jacket with the melted gloves please....

A couple of years ago a Darwin Award candidate was caught at the steelworks at Stocksbridge near Sheffield. The 11Kv lines for part of the plant run in a culvert under the works along with the Little Don River. He claimed that he "had got lost" and wandered into the culvert (down a 6 ft drop). Security found him near a damaged cable and a hacksaw. Part of the works was being closed down at the time and he obviously thought that the cable was no longer live. Luckily for him he was caught before he got through the casing on the cable as it was still live - it went to a different part of the plant. The 250Kv lines that went to the closed down area were overhead. I wonder what would have happened to him if he had got through the casing of the cable given that he was standing in a foot of water to get to the cable.

I remember years ago that the tennents of one of the houses near me took all of the lead pipe out of their house and sold it, then they claimed they had been robbed. The council put in a new kitchen, bathroom and at the same time central heating! Sometimes stuipedity does pay!

Everyone knows that absolute voltage isn't an issue, it's the potential difference that'll kill you (think cows, lightning).

Essentially, if you have one point of electrical contact it's not possible to be electrocuted (a spark gap counts as electrical contact)...

so, if he'd climbed the pylon, then jumped onto the cable, cut through it (only holding on to one side) and let go before touching something else he would have been fine! (maybe a broken leg from the fall though)

Now, the important question... what was the blowtorch for?

I think we need a proper darwin icon... maybe a beagle, or Tricia MacMillan?

as evolution in action.

Rather the rozzers try and find the culprit, why don't they just wait until the tea leaf puts in a compensation claim for his injury? Sorted!

will he be guilty as charged?

Yes, the Gene Pool does need the occasional bottle of bleach to help clean it out....

A comment is required apparently.

Many years ago a relative of mine worked in the System Control Centre for the Jamaica Public Service Company, the electric utility in Jamaica. One night reports of an outage came in when there was nothing indicating a problem on the board, so System Control had Transmission & Special Services send a truck out to find out what was going on. When they arrived at the outage area, the T&SS men called in that the reason for the outage was that someone had removed about several hundred metres of 24,000 volt primary distribution cable. Whoever had done it hadn't cut through the cable, they'd climbed the poles where there were attachment points and dismantled the attachments. A more difficult, but much safer, way to steal cable.

Perhaps citizens of the <cough> ex-Mother Country </cough> might learn a thing or two.

Paris, 'cause she's high-voltage.

When he is arrested 'resistance is futile'

As the investigation is currently under way there was a dawn raid at his omh and there was little resistance.

Police are soldering on getting evidence.

Paris, 'cos I 'm surprised she doesn't qualify for one....

The cops should be looking for a smoking corpse in a local copse.

As someone taught general science from an early age, I have a healthy respect for things I don't understand.

I believe signs that say Danger of Death, but sadly there are people out there who just don't know any better. How many people do you know who:

Don't understand Electricity,

Think Danger of death signs are there to keep you away from some government conspiricy,

It won't happen to them,

Mobile phones work everywhere, Tunnels, Caves, the middle of the kalahari.

Trains can be made to run on time.

I'm sure we can think of thousands more, ultimately we can but hope Darwin wins out, but there's always the Health & Safety executive to protect them. So that's:

10 meter vadle proof fences with razor wire to protect all power lines,

lables on the cable every metre warning "Danger of Death, not suitable for cutting with a hacksaw"

Each pole to have rubber boots & gloves available for anyone who wants to climb it.

You're right but he still wouldn't be able to go near the cable once it's on the ground...

The potential curve around the point of contact is sufficient enough that, if you stand with one foot closer to the cable, a current would flow up one leg and down the other.

Having traversed any soft tissue that might be in between them.

Ouchy.

Lead pipes? That might explain a lot.

Haven't you limeys de-leaded everything yet or are you still using bits of old roman plumbing in your houses?

If so, I'd say it was a brilliant ploy to get the lead out. I hope the council didn't replace it with -- gasp -- more lead!

Presumably if you can 'cut' the cable using the blow torch then you're fairly safe (assuming a dry day) as you won't be in contact with the cable. And once severed from the supply you can cut the other end of the cable using the hacksaw. Obviously if you get this backwards it's going to hurt.

Knowing Creswell, I'm not surprised though, no doubt it was one of the residents.

I remember the cops and the electric company leaving one such genius to hang for more than a week off 22KV grid mast in the mid-90es. It was close to the A-road passing through the village so everyone can see him. No idea if it was intentional or not, but AFAIK the number of cable theft related incidents in the area decreased considerably.

Was there a sign every 50 feet along the length of the cable that said "Danger, using a blowtorch or hacksaw on this cable could result in injury or possibly death"? Was there? No. So the guy is probably trying to figure out how he can sue the power company.

When recently working for a signage company, one of our installation guys was setting up an external sign outside a large office building. He was told to move the sign to a different location as the original site was over a 35kV main line. He moved, and procedded to excavate using a mini-jackhammer. Five feet down, he hits said 35kV line. He's a big chap but he still managed to jump straight out of the hole...

Jackhammer melted beyond repair. Installer OK though.

One thing - the offices belonged to e-on...

Maybe they didn't ... watch out for any car crashes where an occupant is "burned to death"...

This is not thefirst time this has happened. We actually had a Darwin award for a person who did the same thing a few miles away in Wingerworth, Chesterfield.

Mmm....three attempts to steal copper cable in the same area

http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-46.html

Arf.

potential candidate for next year's Darwin Awards then?

When I worked for a Power Control company a few years ago

We had a cab returned to us that an engineer had been standing in....

Said engineer inserted a 24" Screwdriver between two 30KV bus bars

The cab had been returned for investigation.....

I can still remember the smell and the sight of melted person all over the

walls and door.

The thing is with these cabs they were "SAFE" when the door was open

Stupid idiot had closed the door and was using a torch and a screwdriver

to tighten up a loose screw for the current meter on the outside.

He should have got a Darwin Award

Needless to say the cab was returned after rebuild to.... wait for it...

America

Nuff Said

Mines the coat with the none conductive layer

Having watched "idiocracy" the other night, i firmly believe that the HSE should just let darwinism win out.

We constantly protect the stupid so that they can reproduce (we even give them money to live on) and bring up similarly uneducated idiots, yet the intelligent among us can't afford to as we have houses to pay for and tax, and....well....we're just too busy working and the like.

Stop giving out benefits and stop putting ridiculous safety signs on everything otherwise we're gonna be a race of incompetent idiots!

"Well, lead pipes are pretty safe, since leeching [sic] isn't much of a problem..."

I believe that's what the Romans thought too. Look where it got them.

Over on this side of the pond we no longer allow the use of lead-based solder for copper pipes. We also tell everyone to let the water run for a few seconds before filling their cup or teapot to flush out the water that's been sitting in the pipes leaching* the lead out of the solder.

And I don't believe we allow plastic plumbing anywhere for supply. Waste, yes, but not the supply.

*I believe that's the correct spelling in all variations of English. Unless you really meant you've got leeches in your water supply. Yuck. I'm going to have to be extra careful what I drink the next time I'm over. I wonder if I can even trust the beer now.

...evolution in action.