Kathmandu, July 1 -- On a Saturday afternoon in April, 2014, Sabita Thapa was watching television at her family's home in Gothatar, Kathmandu, when the electricity began flickering. She was 11 years old then, old enough to remember the television advertisement playing before the accident, but too young to understand how a few seconds near an exposed high-voltage line would alter the rest of her life.

Outside, workers were replacing metal water pipes near the house with plastic ones. Thapa remembers three bare overhead wires running close to the family's rooftop, which had no protective railing.

According to the Nepal Electricity Authority, Thapa was on the roof when a steel pipe came into contact with the 11-kilovolt power line. The ele...