Guys,
I had a rather strange callout today,
this guy, had a power pole on his property, that had a huge climbing vine all over it and he went to control this beast.
He must have been trying too hard to prune this thing back.
He cut the overhead Phase wire and it blew the hedge trimmers he was using, to smithereens and threw him off the ladder he was standing on, he is now in Hospital, with serious Spinal Injuries.
It would have only taken a simple phone call to the local Power Board, to get the power turned off, while he was doing the pruning.
How stupid can you get?.
When I reached the place, most of the vine was still on the pole, it was huge!.
Ever seen anything as silly as this?.
That guy(if he ever walks again), will never try that trick again.

wow but i heard same thing in usa also one idoite try to pull the vines too and end up burn the vine and guy have mixed 2 nd et 3 degree burns due the vine hit 14.5 kv line near fuseholder and scare heck of him and i went there to fixed and it was a blitz( mess) so i end up put new fuseholder and cut rest of vine off it was tough one

merci marc

I've heard of similar incidents here in Ireland too although you'd rarely have anything other than 220/380V cabling in residential areas overground.

I don't know how distribution works elsewhere but in housing developments here you'd typically have at least one large substation dropping the voltage from 10KV distribution to single phase 220 feeds for residential use. Someone got the bright idea of painting it a new colour got a ladder climbed over the enclosure and contacted the 10KV bus bars!!!

It's pretty much impossible to do that thesedays though. They're usually housed in a small building with fan ventilation or else are totally sealed units and the cabling enters underground. Older ones were often fenced with high fence etc.. but had live gear where the overhead 10KV hooked in.

In rural areas you get 10KV lines and small pole mounted transformers serving a house or two though.

Lots of individual houses here and they have to be served by the grid since the days of rural electrification.

There have been cases of people contacting 220KV though by trespassing into large substations and touching live gear. There's only so much you can do some people are just stupid. Touching transmission lines at 220 or 440 KV is going to kill you! It amazes me that some ppl don't seem to understand that.

Not to take anything away from the stupidity of this, but it reminded me of an inspection I did a few years back. Look towards the bottom of the 1st pic, and you will see the meter. The 2nd pic is the same pole but during the spring.

Rick Miell

Guys,
Thanks for your replies.
The strange thing about the guy who cut the wire that threw him off the ladder, was the fact that he was using a Aluminium extension ladder.
He was lucky, though, he only cut a 400/230VAC wire, most of the wires that feed houses, like his, are run at 11kV, to the transformer, which is mounted up on a pole, next to the house.
This was an older type installation, thank God!.
Just as an aside, there was a guy who emigrated over here from Ireland, a few years ago, he was working on some pylons(painting them), that carried live 220kV lines and I think that he must have got a bit too close to one of the lines, and got hit by the Electricity jumping to his body and then to Earth.
He was burnt really bad, although he survived, I saw a picture of him lying in Hospital, he said when he got out of hospital,he would find a different job,
I can't say I blame him!.

Not directly related to vines, but on the same general topic of people not respecting nearby power lines, I'm reminded of an incident in the village in Cornwall where I used to live in the early 1980s.

Two guys decided to take down a CB antenna. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but they decided they were "big and tough enough" to lower an 18-ft. vertical antenna atop a similar length steel mast, all in one piece, by lifting it above their heads while balanced 15-ft. up a tree on a ladder.

Anyone with an IQ in double digits could have seen that the whole thing would come crashing down -- Unfortunate for them that it did so in the direction of 11kV lines in the next fields.

My sympathies were with the girl they were doing a favor for, as she lost a brother-in-law and a friend and had to witness the bodies being removed by the local Fire Dept.

What WERE they thinking????