Had a similar incident (though not fatal) in Alaska. We (the POCO) got a call that there was smoke coming from the grass near a chain link fence in a school yard. Line crew went out and grounded the fence under the overhead power lines by driving a few ground rods, thinking it was induction. Another call a few days later saying an employee got a shock when he was locking a gate. Our engineer went out and decided we needed to ground the fence in multiple places. I, being a meter/relay tech, went along. We read 118V from the fence to a nearby well casing. We ran a jumper of bare #6 copper from the fence to the casing and measured voltage to ground again. Measured 0V. We did see a spark when we grounded the wire. But...about thirty seconds later, I noticed the wire was smoking and beginning to sag. Then it quit and cooled off. Well, we figured we had a trip of the overhead circuit. Called dispatch, and no trips. The school maintenance guy came out and said they lost power to part of a shop building. We found a tripped 30A breaker inside. Well, long story short, they had done some remodeling and drove a screw through a hot wire behind a sheet metal wall. Had nothing to do with induction. But talking to the maintenance guy, he said it had been that way for weeks, and the kids (elementary school) had been going up to the fence and touching it to feel the "tickle". Wow! They may have some detective work to do to solve this one.
