Clinic was on the verge of disaster - Because his dog dies, man completely freaks out and paralyzes an entire city

Because his dog had to be put down, a man wanted to attack people with an axe. To prevent emergency calls from working, he shut down the power supply in an entire city. The city narrowly avoided a catastrophe.

A man is said to have lost his temper in Halle (Saale) in Saxony-Anhalt and caused a massive power outage in the city and neighboring communities. A trial against the 38-year-old man began on Tuesday at the district court in the city.

The defendant Patrick M. is said to have sent a WhatsApp voice message to a person in February 2023 in which he threatened that he would "completely paralyze Halle today", destroy a gas pipeline and damage the power grid. He also wanted to prevent emergency calls. According to the court, he wanted to "kill" a person with an axe.

That same evening, he went to a substation in Halle, cut through the wire mesh fence and shortly afterwards threw two wire-wrapped objects into the high-voltage system. This caused a short circuit. The high-voltage line and a transformer were damaged. This led to widespread power outages lasting around 80 minutes in the city of Halle and neighboring villages.

Trams and suburban trains were among those that were out of service. The local energy company suffered losses of at least 82,000 euros. The University Hospital in Halle was also affected by the power outage. The hospital narrowly avoided a catastrophe, as it could only have maintained the oxygen supply to ventilated patients for a maximum of one hour and 30 minutes. A longer outage could therefore have endangered the lives of some patients.

The defendant remained silent on the charges on Tuesday, as Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk reported. If convicted, he faces between six months and ten years in prison. The verdict is expected on Thursday.