Around the first week of May in 2020, around 800 homes in three villages in South Lanarkshire were without electricity for a whole night!
And what caused this power disruption?
A four-year old limousin bull called Ron!
The story goes that Ron had an itchy bottom and was looking for some respite. So, he went to the nearby telegraph pole to scratch against it, and in the process, knocked off the transformer off that pole, cutting off electricity to all the homes in the vicinity!! Considering that Ron weights over a ton, this seems extremely plausible.
Remarkably, Ron managed to avoid getting in contact with the box and escaped a 11,000 volt shock!
His owner, Hazel Laughton told BBC Scotland that she was astonished that Ron had remained unscathed by this accident.
“We went up to feed our cows and it was my husband that noticed the transformer box had been knocked off the pole.
“We put two and two together and realised our bull had been scratching against the telegraph pole and he had knocked the box off the pole. All the wires were down in the field as well,” Hazel said.
“We were standing looking at it and the bull just sheepishly walked up to the fence. He just looked a bit stunned. I don’t think he really knew what had happened during the night.”
Chapelton, Strathaven, and Glassford were the three villages affected by this incident, engineers from SP Energy Networks informed.
Hazel also put up an apology post on a Facebook page called ‘Chapelton, Strathaven Group’ saying, “Our bull Ron would like to apologise to everyone in Chapelton and Strathaven for causing last nights power cut to over 700 homes!! He had a itchy bum so scratched it on the electricity pole and knocked the transformer box off! He’s just happy to be alive this morning after somehow escaping 11,000 volts and a large bump on the head! Think we will rename him ‘Sparky’!”
And what did Ron do throughout the day after he had caused so much panic? Relaxed in the field unaware of all the chaos and mayhem that he had caused!
He has become a celebrity of sorts since this event, and even has a dedicated Facebook page!
We can’t wait to hear more stories about this naughty bull! How about you?
