From putting their tongue to a frozen pipe as young children, apparently.

Or something to that effect.

Have you ever accidentally nipped through the extension cord with your hedge clippers?
Only 110 but sure can be impressive.
Thank god for GFIs.
And this genius trys to chop through bulk power transmission lines.
Most likely 1550.
Crispy Critter time!
Yes, oh yes, right in line for a Darwin Award.

Somehow this story doesn't really surprise me at all.

These were wires that provided power to 3,000 homes.

As mentioned, probably very high voltages for transmission efficiency, that's stepped down to 110V close to the houses.

And enough amps to cook a whale.

Yeah, he's a crispy critter!

As he got close enough to cut, the HUM alone should have told him he was into bad magic.

He was going for the grounding wire off a live transformer. He told me to mind my own business. I called the cops while he was standing there, then we got into a foot chase.

The power company had to come and fix the damage he'd caused getting the protective barrier off.

They were going to send me the police chopper but it was refueling.

Some people get exactly what they deserve.

and I stumbled upon a video from India of a guy standing on top of a train, who committed suicide by reaching up and touching the overhead power line.

Yeah. Bright flashes, fire shooting out of his head, then a charred corpse falling like a sack of potatoes and lying there smoking.

On the bright side, that death was very quick!

to get free copper wire, would that be a bad thing?

distinctive tattoo on the man's torso. Stealing copper is a big problem around here. They not only take wiring, they also take plumbing lines and A/C units with copper condensing coils. New construction is especially hard hit. Scrap metal is big business these days.

It used to be people like this could find work.

I knew people who weren't bright and couldn't be trusted with the key to the cardboard compressor, people who would go home with pockets full of pilfered Little Debbie snack cakes, but they still had jobs.

Geez. This is starving people taking apart dud ammunition to sell the brass kind of poverty...

Really, to the best of my knowledge only a desperate addict tends to take such extreme risks.

This kind of addiction is a medical problem. Wealthy people go to expensive rehab clinics or they have access to high quality drugs that don't kill them right away. (Rush Limbaugh...)

Once a person starts cutting up power lines, sharing needles, or selling themselves for a fix, they are not going live long.

Everyone deserves a safe place, desperate addicts included.

Maybe if they had a safe place they wouldn't be out on the streets stealing metal to sell for scrap.

Well said.